***demands full investigation report from DSS
By Comfort Olayinka
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has been called upon, to as a matter of urgent necessity, arraign its former Chairman, Mr. Abdulrasheed Bawa to court, over multiple corruption allegations against him.
The Coalition of Activists Against Corruption in Nigeria (CAACIN), handed this charge, through a statement in Kaduna, Thursday morning.
In the statement signed by the Spokesperson of the Coalition, Comrade Ahmed Aliyu, the Department of State Services (DSS) was also challenged to make public, the report of their investigation, in the over four months detention and interrogation of the erstwhile EFCC Boss in their custody in 2023.
“It is not possible to detian a man of his caliber for 5 months, for nothing. We invite the DSS to make open, the report of their findings. There were multiple corruption allegations against Bawa which the EFCC and DSS were also aware. Nigerians can’t afford to let these be swept under the carpet”, the statement read in part.
The Coalition’s call is coming 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 the opposition figures to discredit President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
In what the group described as “coordinated and sinister,” 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 on Thursday, the Coalition of Activists Against Corruption in Nigeria also frowned at the rationale behind keeping those appointees and close allies of the ex-Chairman in the Commission, two years after he was sacked.
The Coalition said, “it does not make any sense to still 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 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 years 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 sabotage the fight against corruption and rubbish the integrity of the Tinubu’s anti-corruption stance.
“It is on this note that we demand that the DSS should avail the public the report of their investigation. The EFCC should as a 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 over power. The DSS subsequently picked him same day and detained him in Yellow House for 134 days, without giving reason for his arrest or disclose what the result of their investigation was.
Several credible media houses within and outside the country have reported stories about an alleged embezzlement of public funds by the former EFCC boss. Many organizations, including the North Central Citizens Council (NCCC), have also called for full investigation into the allegations levelled against Bawa, even when he was still in the office.
One of the allegations was that the former Chairman expended a large amount of money to the tune of $300,000 for hotels and other activities, which is far and beyond his income as civil servant, during a visit to Mecca with his family on a lesser Hajj, while still in the office.
There were also reports of how 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 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 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 we met, he invited me and told me the conditions. He told me 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”, Matawalle had told BBCHausa.
