EFCC: PDP Charges Bawa, To Avoid Magu’s Mistakes |The Source

By Akinwale Kasali

Opposition Party, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has urged the new Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Boss, Abdulrasheed Bawa to re-engineer and restore professionalism in the anti-graft agency.

In a statement signed by  its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, in Abuja, the party urged Bawa to avoid the pitfalls of his immediate predecessor.

It advised him to resist all partisan pressures to use the Commissin as a tool for political persecution, harassment of dissenting voices, settling of personal scores as well as for personal enrichment.

The PDP said that such tendencies eroded professionalism in the EFCC, compromised its activities and diminished the public confidence with regard to fairness, impartiality and even-handedness in the handling of cases.

The PDP also noted that the EFCC was established to fight corruption and not as a tool for oppression and intimidation of innocent Nigerians for political and other unjustified reasons.

It stated:“The PDP notes that for the first time, the Chairman of the EFCC is drawn from the pool of trained investigators of the commission

“Nigerians expect the new chairman to bring the benefits of his training to bear by sanitising the system and restoring professionalism in line with international best practices.

“Furthermore, our party urges the new EFCC Chairman to bear in mind that, given his young age and training, he should exhibit the ideals of the Generation-Next Nigeria in reciprocation of the confidence Nigerians repose in him.”

Bawa, 40, succeeded CP Ibrahim Magu, who was suspended from office in July, 2020, and was finally removed from office on the appointment of Bawa.

Magu’s fate is still unknown, months after a Presidential Investigation Panel, headed by a retired President of the Court of Appeal, Hon. Justice Ayo Salami, which investigated his tenure, apparently recommended his sack.