For the fourth day running, notable anti-corruption civil society organisations (CSOs), yesterday continued their protest against the continued stay in office of the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Abdulrasheed Bawa.
Apart from street protests, the CSOs sent a petition to the National Assembly (NASS) demanding that Bawa be forced out of office for disobedience of court orders, politicisation of the agency and abuse of human rights.
The activists declared that they would never be intimidated by alleged fresh falsehood being raised against them by the EFCC.
Yesterday, the protesters marched through the streets of Ikeja and converged on the Lagos State House of Assembly, Alausa.
According to them, the majority of Nigerians were intelligent, who could easily differentiate between a genuine cause and sponsored ones, adding that there was no going back on the call for the removal of Bawa.
The activists claimed that the EFCC had resorted to cheap blackmail to divert the thinking of the public away from its lawlessness, pointing out that “this had only compounded the commission’s problems and exposed the dangerous political agenda of its chairman.”
The CSOs said they had uncovered plans by Bawa and his alleged sponsors to raise supposed CSOs, who they would back with live coverage, to demonstrate “fake solidarity for an EFCC boss that had clearly become an embarrassment to Nigeria.”
“We are waiting for them. We don’t expect them to fold their arms. But no amount of falsehood can cover the truth. Bawa came in through vendetta and he is unleashing the same on perceived opponents of his godfathers. We have seen that Ibrahim Magu was bundled out with lies so that Bawa’s godfathers can reign with impunity. The fixation on specific cases is glaring to informed Nigerians,” director, Activists for Good Governance, Declan Ihehaire said.
