Sales of seized assets: Lawyer threatens to invoke FOI Act against EFCC

Admin l Saturday, December 12, 2020

 

LAGOS, Nigeria – A Lagos based lawyer Mr Olaniyi Adekanla, has vowed to invoke Freedom of Information Act, compelling the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), to make public findings on allegation of gross misconduct on sale of public assets in Port Harcourt zonal office of the agency.

He said the commission must make public outcome of findings on alleged misconduct in the sale of 244 petroleum tankers seized from suspected looters, auctioned in a controversial manner in Port Harcourt zone of the agency.

He said this in an address to newsmen, saying the anti-corruption agency should be accountable to Nigerians in its transactions as he noted that wor against corruption of the present administration must be driven by incorruptible officers.

He frowned at the emergency of Mr Abdulrasheed Bawa as the Head of the Lagos Zonal Office of the Commission while the world is awaiting his role in the auction of the 244 petroleum tankers in controversial manner. He said  Bawa’s  appointment is contravenes the anti-corruption core values of the EFCC which was the why the Agency was established in 2004 by the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

” Essentially, the promoters of this institution believed that corruption shall be uprooted and exterminated in our system. Needless to say that this institution has recorded modest achievements in the course of its operation, so far,” he said.

The lawyer however noted that the wheels of the institution has continued to be clogged by “bad eggs” which has been preventing it from achieving its core objective of curbing and eradicating corruption and impunity in Nigeria.

“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 bastardisation 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! It is against this fundamental reason I consider the headship of Lagos EFCC Zonal office by Mr Abdulrasheed Bawa, a Deputy Chief Detective as inappropriate, otiose, inequitable and inappropriate,” Adekanla said.

Giving a background on the corruption allegations, he alleged that under Bawa’s watch, a minimum of 244 petroleum tankers were seized from some suspected looters and were auctioned at “ridiculous prices” to proxies of the EFCC officer.

He said that the trucks were the subject matter of criminal litigation at Federal High Court and that under the law,  while forfeiture proceedings are ongoing, no sale of any goods that forms the subject matter of the criminal allegation can be made.

He noted that this action had irked some junior colleagues who wrote anonymous petitions a consequence of which, Bawa was arrested and detained for several days in Port-Harcourt before Mr Ibrahim Magu, former head of the Agency, ordered his transfer to the institution’s training school in Abuja.

“Despite the above catalogued facts, it is unfortunate that Mr Abdulrasheed Bawa was rewarded with the headship of EFCC Lagos Zonal Division. I hold that this development is absurd and runs against the fundamental aims and objectives of this institution,” Adekanla said.n