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LAGOS, Nigeria (September 11, 2026) — The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has launched a joint investigation with Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) into the alleged diversion and mismanagement of funds provided under U.S. government-supported programmes in Nigeria, following the 2025 shutdown of several USAID initiatives in the country.

The partnership was formalized on September 10, when Marcus Maccain, the FBI’s Assistant Law Enforcement Attaché, led a delegation on a courtesy visit to the EFCC’s Lagos Zonal Directorate 2. He was hosted by the directorate’s Acting Zonal Director, Assistant Commander Bawa Usman Kaltungo, who welcomed the delegation on behalf of EFCC Chairman Ola Olukoyede.

“We are seeking stronger engagement with the EFCC to establish how the funds were managed and identify possible financial misconduct arising from the termination of the programmes,” Maccain said. He said the engagement followed concerns over how implementing organisations handled money that remained in their possession after some USAID-supported programmes — particularly those addressing HIV and tuberculosis — were discontinued amid the Trump administration’s broader overhaul of U.S. foreign aid in 2025.

Jeremy Kennon, a Special Agent with the Office of Inspector General at the U.S. Department of State, who was also part of the delegation, said the collaboration was intended to be a long-term, two-way exchange of information rather than a one-off request. “We’ll like to work with the EFCC on this on a long-term basis, and we’ll be sharing information with you; not just getting information from you,” he said.

Kaltungo said the EFCC would trace the movement of the funds to their ultimate beneficiaries to establish how they were spent, determine whether they were used for their intended purposes, and assess whether any portion was mismanaged or diverted following the programmes’ cancellation. He said the investigation would be coordinated across all states where the affected organisations and programmes operated, and described the U.S.-Nigeria law enforcement relationship as long-standing. Programmes previously flagged in USAID Office of Inspector General audits include those managed by the KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation Nigeria and Georgetown Global Health Nigeria.

Background: The Terrorism Financing Claim

The probe arrives roughly a year after U.S. Congressman Scott Perry, a Pennsylvania Republican, alleged during a February 2025 hearing of the House Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency that USAID was funding terrorist organisations, including Boko Haram, ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and ISIS Khorasan, to the tune of roughly $697 million annually. Perry made the claim without presenting supporting evidence, and it drew swift pushback: then-U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria Richard Mills Jr. said he had seen no evidence that USAID funding had been diverted to Boko Haram, noting the group’s designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organization since 2013 was specifically meant to block such transfers. Nigerian human rights lawyer Emmanuel Ogebe, who has worked extensively on tracking Boko Haram’s financing networks, also called the claim baseless, and Perry himself subsequently walked back the assertion in written correspondence, according to Ogebe, without ever explicitly naming Nigeria or Boko Haram in his later remarks.

The current FBI-EFCC investigation, as described by officials from both agencies, is centered on financial mismanagement and diversion following the termination of specific health-focused USAID programmes, rather than on the terrorism-financing allegations Perry raised. Neither agency has publicly linked the new probe to Perry’s claims.

This is a developing story.