The commission's creation was partly in response to pressure from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on Money Laundering, which had ranked Nigeria as one of 23 non-cooperative countries.

[5] In December 2007, the Nigerian Federal Government, after extensive investigations by EFCC and other organisations, cleared the Vaswani Brothers[6] of any wrongdoing and invited them back into the country.

In April 2008, the EFCC began an investigation of the very influential daughter of a former Nigerian President, Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello for receiving N10 million ($100,000), stolen from the Ministry of Health.

[11] On July 6, 2020, Magu was arrested by operatives of the State Security Service and the Nigeria Police Force and driven to the Aso Villa where he was made to answer questions on alleged corruption against him.

On July 10, 2020, President Muhammadu Buhari approved the immediate suspension of Ibrahim Magu as acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)[14] in a statement issued by the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami.

President Muhammadu Buhari also approved that the EFCC Director of Operations, Mohammed Umar Abba, should take charge and oversee the activities of the Commission[15][16] pending the conclusion of the ongoing investigation and further directives.