President Muhammadu Buhari has asked the Senate to confirm Mr. Abdulrasheed Bawa as substantive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)
In a letter to President of the Senate, Ahmad Ibrahim Lawan, the President said he was acting in accordance with Paragraph 2(3) of Part1, CAP E1 of EFCC Act 2004.
Bawa, 40, is a trained EFCC investigator with vast experience in the investigation and prosecution of Advance Fee Fraud cases, officialb corruption, bank fraud, money laundering, and other economic crimes.
He has undergone several specialized trainings in different parts of the world, and was one of the pioneer EFCC Cadet Officers in 2005.
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Bawa holds a B.Sc degree in Economics, and Masters in International Affairs and Diplomacy.
Mr. Bawa came to public attention last year after a lawyer, Mr. Olaniyi Adekanla, filed a petition seeking the removal of Mr. Abdulrasheed Bawa, from the office of the Lagos Zonal Head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC.)
Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday in Lagos, Adekanla, Esq. stressed that the current zonal head is a misfit for the office.
He held the notion that an organisation at the vanguard of Anti-Corruption crusade should not allow Abdulrasheed Bawa to call the shots at the Lagos Office of the EFCC.
Reiterating his position, the lawyer explained, “It is therefore against this backdrop that the extant development in the Lagos Zonal office of EFCC, to wit its headship by one Abdulrasheed Bawa is considered inappropriate and a deviance to the gravity of sanitization of corruption which led to the establishment of this organisation, hence an erosion and bastadisation of its moral and functional values. For the umpteenth time, Lagos Zone of this institution is too important to be headed by any person carrying stigma of infamy either by allegation or otherwise!”, he said.
Bawa was alleged to have sometime last year confiscated dozens of petrol tankers and sold to his proxies.
Said Adekanla, “Last year, under the watch of Mr. Abdulrasheed Bawa in the Port-Harcourt Zonal office of EFCC, dozens of petrol tankers were confiscated from suspected looters and same were auctioned to Mr. Abdulrasheed Bawa proxies at ridiculous prices.
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“This irked some junior colleagues who wrote anonymous petitions and sequel to which Mr. Bawa was arrested and detained for several days in Port-Harcourt before Magu, former head of the institution who consequently ordered his transfer to the agency’s training school in Abuja.
“Mr. Bawa was accused of selling at least 244 trucks worth between N20 to N30 million each at N100,000 or slightly more per unit to his proxies! A proxy was said to have sold one of the tankers to a businessman in Ibadan for N14.8 million. This obscene deal was said to have denied Nigeria Government about N4.88 billion, an amount which is enough to take care of the yearly overhead of the organization, conservatively put at N4.5 million per annum.
“It may interest you to know that while forfeiture proceedings are ongoing no sale of any goods that forms subject matter of the criminal allegation can be made. In contradistinction to this avowed position Mr. Bawa put those trucks that were subject matter of criminal litigation at Federal High Court for sale.”
He expressed that it is unfortunate that Mr. Abdulrasheed Bawa was rewarded with the headship of EFCC Lagos Zonal Division.
