The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has been called upon to arraign its former chairman, Mr Abdulrasheed Bawa, in court over multiple corruption allegations against him.
The Coalition of Activists Against Corruption in Nigeria (CAACIN) issued this charge in a statement in Kaduna yesterday.
In the statement signed by the coalition’s spokesperson, Comrade Ahmed Aliyu, the Department of State Services (DSS) was also challenged to make public the report of their investigation into the over four-month detention and interrogation of the erstwhile EFCC Boss in their custody in 2023.
“It is not possible to detain a man of his calibre for five months for nothing. We invite the DSS to open the report of their findings. The EFCC and DSS were also aware of multiple corruption allegations against Bawa. Nigerians can’t afford to let these be swept under the carpet,” the statement read.
The coalition’s call comes barely three days after a group, Citizens Forum for Transparency and Integrity (CFTI), in a statement by its president, Alhaji Aminu Mustapha Gidado, in Lagos, accused Bawa of working secretly with opposition figures to discredit President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
In what the group described as “coordinated and sinister,” move the CFTI alleged that Bawa recently met with key opposition figures in London, where discussions were held on using his former contacts within the EFCC to target four serving ministers in Tinubu’s cabinet.
While reacting yesterday, the Coalition of Activists Against Corruption in Nigeria also frowned at the rationale behind keeping the ex-chairman’s appointees and close allies in the Commission two years after he was sacked.
The coalition said, “It does not make any sense to keep the appointees and close allies of a man who was severally accused of embezzlement, fraud, bribery and other corrupt practices in the system. It is as good as still having the corrupt man in the system. Aside from the fact that the system will remain corrupted by them, it’s also a simple logic that the ex-chairman could use them to sabotage the commission and the government.
“Keeping those Bawa appointed or employed in his two-year sway in the commission is just to say that the EFCC is sitting on a time bomb, as it would only take time for his loyalists to begin sabotaging the fight against corruption and rubbish the integrity of Tinubu’s anti-corruption stance.
“It is on this note that we demand that the DSS should make the public report of their investigation available. The EFCC should, as a matter of urgent necessity, charge Abdulrasheed Bawa to court. The Commission should also purge itself by showing those Bawa brought in, the way out.”
It would be recalled that President Tinubu suspended Abdulrasheed Bawa as acting chairman of the EFCC in June 2023, exactly two weeks after he took office. The DSS subsequently picked him up the same day and detained him in the Yellow House for 134 days, without giving the reason for his arrest or disclosing the result of their investigation.
Several credible media houses within and outside the country have reported stories about the former EFCC boss’ alleged embezzlement of public funds. Many organisations, including the North Central Citizens Council (NCCC), have also called for a full investigation into the allegations levelled against Bawa, even when he was still in office.
One of the allegations was that the former chairman expended $300,000 on hotels and other activities, which is far beyond his income as a civil servant, while still in the office, during a visit to Mecca with his family on a lesser Hajj.
There were also reports that Bawa was probed by the current EFCC Chief, Ola Olukoyede, in 2019 over alleged sales of seized assets worth over N4.8 billion while Bawa was overseeing the Lagos Zonal Office of the commission, though the EFCC refuted this claim in 2021.
In his last days as governor of Zamfara State, Mallam Bello Matawalle, had also, during an interview with the BBC Hausa in May 2023, accused Bawa of demanding a bribe of two million dollars from him.
“If he exits the office, people will surely know he is not an honest person. I have evidence against him. Let him vacate the office. I am telling you that within 10 seconds, probably more than 200 people will bring evidence of bribes he collected from them. He knows what he requested from me, but I declined.
“He requested a bribe of two million dollars from me, and I have evidence of this. He knows the house where we met, he invited me and told me the conditions. He told me the governors were going to his office, but I did not. If I don’t have evidence, I won’t say this,” the governor said in the interview.
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