PDP sends message to new EFCC boss Bawa

Nigeria’s opposition party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has advised the new Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr Abdulraheed Bawa, to re-engineer and restore professionalism in the anti-graft agency.

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

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

He 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.

Ologbondiyan 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.

“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.”

The Senate had, on Wednesday, confirmed Mr Bawa, who was nominated by the president on February 15, as the substantive Chair of EFCC, following his successful screening.

Mr Bawa’s appointment was endorsed by the lawmakers after a voice vote by President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan.

Mr Bawa, an indigene of Kebbi and certified anti-money laundering specialist, has Bachelor’s Degree in Economics.