By Epiphanus Obia
Nigerian poet and editor Adedayo Agarau has launched Looters, a publicly accessible archive mapping Nigerian political corruption from the 1990s to the present, with 615 documented entries and 561 recorded connections between individuals, institutions, and shell companies.
Agarau announced the project on May 18 via his X account. The archive, accessible at 1000reasons.vote/looters, was last updated on May 19, 2026.
The database spans ten political eras, from the First Republic through the current Tinubu administration, which accounts for 223 entries. The Buhari era carries the most entries at 273, followed by the Jonathan period with 221.
Each entry is tagged with its current legal status (convicted, arraigned, under investigation, alleged, dismissed, or plea bargain) and cites published reports and public records as its source. Of the 615 entries, 166 are classified as alleged, 144 as arraigned, and 47 as convicted.
The archive covers 246 politicians and 177 public officials, alongside 37 vendors, 19 shell companies, 27 designated terrorist financiers, and 80 institutions including anti-corruption agencies and foreign courts.
Among the entries are sitting and former heads of state, current federal ministers, state governors, and foreign-based shell companies linked to Nigerian public funds.
Entries include the sitting president, listed as alleged, and former governors currently standing trial, including Yahaya Bello, who faces charges totalling over N190 billion.
An interactive graph view maps connections between entries, allowing users to trace financial and institutional relationships across eras. A separate terrorism financing filter covers designated individuals and entities linked to Boko Haram and ISWAP.
The archive states a firm editorial principle: no individual is described as a wrongdoer unless a court has made that determination, and allegations are labelled as such. A corrections email is listed for right-of-reply requests, with a 48-hour acknowledgement window.
Looters is an extension of Agarau’s 1000reasons.vote project, which he launched earlier this year as a documented catalogue of governance failures under President Tinubu ahead of the 2027 elections. That project drew significant online attention after his announcement on X.
Agarau holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, was a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, and is the author of The Years of Blood, published by Fordham University Press. He is Editor-in-Chief of Agbowo Magazine and Poetry Reviews Editor at The Rumpus.