EFCC – The Haunted Hunter 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 9 th 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.