By Kazeem Akintunde
Since the establishment of the Economic and Crimes Commission (EFCC) in 2003 with a mandate to fight financial crimes and other related offences, successive chairmen of the agency have been removed in controversial circumstances. In the last 20 years, the agency has been headed by five different people and all have had to leave their seats without completing their tenures. Going by the Act that established the agency, the Chairman of the Commission should be in office for four years, which can be renewed for another term of four years.
But last Wednesday, the tenure of AbdulRasheed Bawa, who came into office in 2021 as EFFCC Chairman was abruptly brought to an end when President Bola Tinubu directed that he should proceed on suspension pending the outcome of an investigation into weighty allegations leveled against him. Bawa was on the seat for two years and four months, and it is highly unlikely that he will return to the same seat.
Make no mistake about it, fighting financial crimes anywhere in the world is among the toughest jobs anyone can undertake. The occupier of such offices must learn to hunt with the wolf and dine with Satan with a very long spoon.
When his appointment was announced by former President Muhammadu Buhari, many believed that Bawa was not ripe for the job. At age 40, he was a middle-ranking officer, a Deputy Chief Detective Superintendent, despite the Commission’s Act stating clearly that its Chairman ‘must be a serving or retired member of any government security or law enforcement agency not below the rank of Assistant Commissioner of Police or equivalent; and possess not less than 15 years experience’. Nevertheless, some Nigerians believed that Bawa would use his youthfulness and zeal to turn the fortune of the agency around and go all out in the fight against financial crimes committed daily by politically exposed persons in the country.
However, it turned out that Bawa was more at home fighting young Nigerians who have taken to internet fraud as a form of business. Internet scams, marriage scams, and other sundry petty crimes by the youths were given more priority by the Commission under his leadership. On this score, Bawa did excellently well as many found guilty of these crimes were sent to jail on a daily basis and millions of naira in cash and property confiscated from them. But the big boys proved to be too much of a challenge for the young EFCC boss, who ran into trouble whenever he tried to bite.
One of those big boys that gave Bawa a bloody nose was the immediate past Governor of Zamfara State, Bello Matawalle. Both were locked in a battle of words recently, with both parties making weighty allegations against each other. While the EFCC alleged that Matawalle was being investigated over an alleged N70 billion fraud, the former Governor accused Bawa of demanding a $2 million bribe from him, an allegation that Bawa denied.
Few months before the spat with Matawalle, over 40 anti-corruption civil society organisations had addressed a press conference in Lagos, where they called for the sack of Bawa for what they termed ‘incessant disobedience of court orders’. The civil society organisations noted that the Commission had derailed from its mission and has been politicized. Led by the Chairman of the Centre for Anti-corruption and Open Leadership, Debo Adeniran, the group alleged that Bawa had turned the EFCC into an institution known for brazenly disobeying court orders in such a manner that does not only undermine the institutions of Nigeria’s democracy, but also indicates a contradiction to the anti-corruption agenda of the Government. They vowed not to rest until Bawa was out of office in order for the Commission to “recover its past glory”.
One of the court orders Bawa allegedly flouted was that of a Kogi State High Court in Lokoja, which ordered the EFCC boss to be imprisoned for disobeying its order. It also directed the Inspector General of Police to arrest Bawa and remand him in Kuje prison, Abuja, for 14 days. The judge, Rukayat Ayoola, issued the committal order based on an application filed by Ali Bello, accusing Bawa of disobeying a court ruling by going ahead to arraign him on December 15, 2022, against an earlier court order made on December 12, 2022.
In the said December 12, 2022 ruling, the court had ruled that the arrest and detention of Mr. Bello on November 29, 2022 by EFCC and its Chair in the face of an earlier subsisting court order without a warrant of arrest or being informed of the offence for which he was arrested is unlawful and unconstitutional. The court also held that the arrest and detention of the applicant contravened his right to personal liberty and dignity of the human person guaranteed under Chapter IV of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) and Articles 5 and 6 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The court had also ordered the respondents to tender an apology to the applicant in a national newspaper and awarded N10 million compensation for him. But all these orders were not obeyed by the EFCC and its boss, thereby leading to the order of arrest of the EFCC boss. For context, Ali Bello is a cousin of the Kogi State Governor, Yahaya Bello, whom the agency believed was the big man behind Ali Bello, and the front used for the laundering of millions of naira of Kogi State funds.
Again, prior to this, on November 9, 2022, Justice Chizoba Oji of an Abuja High Court sitting in Maitama had also ordered the remand of the EFCC Chairman at the Kuje Correctional Centre, for allegedly disobeying an earlier order of the court against the Commission. But EFCC, which immediately appealed the judgement, said the ruling was surprising and created a wrong impression of Bawa as one who encouraged impunity. Delivering a ruling in an application brought by Air Vice Marshal (AVM) Rufus Ojuawo, Oji held that the “Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission is in contempt of the orders of this court made on November 21, 2018, directing the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Abuja, to return to the applicant, his Range Rover (Supercharge) and the sum of N40 million.”
In the ruling, delivered on October 28, 2022, the court stated that the EFCC boss “should be committed to prison at Kuje Correctional Centre for his disobedience, and continued disobedience of the said order of court made on November 21st, 2018, until he purges himself of the contempt.” Ojuawo, a one-time Director of Operations at the Nigerian Air Force (NAF), had, in a motion on notice marked: FCT/HC/M/52/2021, complained that the anti-graft agency was yet to comply with the November 21, 2018 judgement, which ordered the Commission to release his seized property. However, on November 10, 2022, the judge, ruling on an application filed by Bawa, set aside her decision of 28 October, which ordered the Inspector-General of Police to arrest the EFCC boss with a view to incarcerating him at Kuje prison in Abuja. The judge said she was satisfied that the EFCC Chairman did not disregard the court’s orders, asking him to release seized assets belonging to Rufus Ojuawo, a retired Air Vice Marshal. The judge held that evidence before her showed Bawa had complied with the court’s order, directing the EFCC to return the Range Rover Sport vehicle, and was in the process of returning his N40 million.
Bawa’s travail won’t be the first, as those before him faced similar problems while at the helm of affairs at the agency. Nuhu Ribadu, the first boss of the agency, fell out of favour with the powers that be in December 2007, and was forced out of office two weeks after he tried to prosecute former Delta State Governor, James Ibori, a close associate of Obasanjo’s successor in office, Umaru Yar’Adua. In a widely publicized ousting, he was forced out of a graduation ceremony by security operatives at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru, Plateau State. He was subsequently demoted by the police, and then retired.
Farida Waziri’s appointment in May 2008, shortly after Nuhu Ribadu was booted out, was clouded by allegations that she was sponsored by ex-governors such as James Ibori and George Akume, former Governor of Benue State, to cover up their money laundering and fraud charges before the Commission. The same Akume is now the Secretary to the Federal Government and his office issued the statement that suspended Bawa.
Her tumultuous reign as Tzar of Nigeria’s anti-graft agency caused international donors and partners to hesitate in dealing with the country. In one incident, former American Ambassador to Nigeria, Robin Sanders, walked out of a meeting with the then Foreign Affairs Minister, Ojo Madueke, because of Waziri’s presence. Waziri was sacked by former President Goodluck Jonathan on November 23, 2011. He cited “national interest” as the reason for her dismissal.
Ibrahim Lamorde replaced Waziri on November 23, 2011, as acting Chairperson of the EFCC. He became embroiled in controversy in 2015 after the Nigerian Senate alleged that $5bn (£3.2bn) had gone missing at the EFCC. A Senate committee, led by Senator Peter Nwaboshi at the time, alleged that Lamorde diverted assets and cash recovered by the Commission. An investigative panel was set up at the instance of George Uboh, a prominent whistleblower. He was sacked by Buhari on November 9, 2015, and replaced with Ibrahim Magu.
Magu was first appointed as Acting Chairman of the Commission in November 2015, by President Buhari. But the Nigerian Senate refused to confirm Magu as Chairman of the agency due to “security reports” by law enforcement agencies in the country. He is also known to have had a public spat with Abubakar Malami, Nigeria’s former Attorney-General. The DSS, in a 2016 report, revealed that Magu was living in a N40m mansion but Buhari refused to remove him nor send a replacement to the Senate for the agency to have a substantive Head. On July 6, 2020, Magu was arrested by operatives of the Department of State Services and the Nigeria Police Force and driven to the Presidential Villa, where he was made to answer questions on alleged corruption against him.
With the ways and manners past leaders of the EFCC have been treated, it was not surprising when lawmakers removed from the Presidency, the power to hire and fire any EFCC boss. A bill that sought to limit the President’s powers to remove the Chairperson of the EFCC, sponsored by the Senate Minority Whip in the last 9th Assembly, Chukwuka Utazi, (PDP, Enugu North), scaled second reading in December last year. The Act simply seeks to amend the EFCC Act to subject the termination of the appointment of the Chairperson of the Commission to the confirmation of the Senate “in order to guarantee the security of tenure”.
Most Nigerians know that there is no way corrupt politicians will not fight back when EFCC operatives go after them. Now that Bawa has been temporarily suspended pending the outcome of investigations, will he get back his seat or has he become the latest victim of the banana peels in the EFCC’s corridor of power? Only time will tell.
See you next week.