ABUJA, NIGERAI (Reuters) - THE anti-corruption police in Nigeria are working with top computer-software companies to stop thousands of fraudulent e-mail messages from leaving the country, in a crackdown on Internet crime in Africa's most populous nation.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) said last Thursday that its "Eagle Claw" project, expected to become fully operational in six months, aimed to improve Nigeria's tarnished image as one of the world's top countries for Internet scam.

"The EFCC is fine-tuning security modalities with Microsoft and, upon full deployment, the capacity to take down fraudulent e-mail messages will increase to 5,000 monthly," said agency chairman Farida Waziri.

The government said it would also be working with Yahoo and Google to monitor online traffic to block millions of e-mail spam messages from Nigeria.

"The technology is not yet fully developed, but operatives will be working 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to detect key words found in fraudulent e-mail messages.

Only clean e-mail can go out," said EFCC spokesman Femi Babafemi.

The agency said it has already shut down 800 scam websites and arrested 18 people in the last three months.

It will have at least 100 EFCC officials dedicated to the project.

The initiative is the latest effort by the government to shrug off its image as an epicentre of corruption.

But Nigerians, most of whom live on less than US$2 (S$2.80) a day, say the government needs to do more to address the everyday problems of the oil-rich but impoverished country.