EFCC reacts to allegations its account has been hacked by Yahoo Boys

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has reacted to the disappearance of its X account after Yahoo Boys threatened cyber warfare against the anti-graft agency.

On Wednesday,  August 14, Nigerians noticed that the organisation’s X handle, with its 2.2 million followers, was no longer accessible.

“This account doesn’t exist” was the message provided by X after a search for EFCC’s handle.

Dele Oyewale, EFCC’s chief spokesman, confirmed that the handle, @officialEFCC, has been down for three days.

He attributed the issue to a network problem and noted that the agency’s ICT department is working to resolve it.

“Our ICT department is working on it. They have been on it for almost three days now.

We are hoping It will come up again,” Mr Oyewale told The Gazette on Wednesday night.

However,  Nigerians took to X to say it was not just any network problem but the handwork of fraudsters who had threatened just days earlier to wage cyber warfare against the anti-graft office for its alleged disregard of constitutional norms in cracking down on dubious activities among Nigerians online.

The threats were made on Reddit and other forums last weekend, with some of the commenters claiming EFCC officials extorted them. 

Amid claims that they were hacked by fraudsters, the EFCC provided a statement to the News Agency of Nigeria.

EFCC Spokesperson, Dele Oyewale, told NAN in Abuja: “Our X account is down temporarily due to ongoing upgrade and we will soon bounce back.

“You know when there is an upgrade in a system, it may be temporarily down and inaccessible. We doing the upgrade to serve the public better.

“You can see that other social media pages of the commission are still functional.”

He said that the anti-graft agency was also updating its records on the account

“Our account was not hacked. It will soon start running,” he said.

The agency’s website and other social media pages, such as Facebook and Instagram, are still functional.