Arrest, Jail Anti-Graft Agency, EFCC Chairman, Bawa Immediately, HURIWA Tells Nigeria’s Police Chief To Respect Court Order
A civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association (HURIWA) has called on the Inspector-General of Police, Usman Baba, to immediately enforce a court verdict ordering the imprisonment of the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Mr. Abdulrasheed Bawa.
A Federal High Court in Abuja on Tuesday sent Bawa to Kuje correctional facility.
Bawa was convicted on Tuesday by Justice Chizoba Oji for contempt of court in relation to his agency’s failure to comply with an earlier order of the court.
Justice Oji, in a ruling, held that “the Chairman Economic and Financial Crimes Commission is in contempt of the orders of this honourable court made on November 21st 2018 directing the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Abuja to return to the applicant his Range Rover (Super charge) and the sum of N40, 000,000.00 (Forty Million Naira).
“Having continued wilfully in disobedience to the order of this court, he 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.”
However, HURIWA on Wednesday faulted the EFCC’s statement saying Bawa had approved the immediate release of the Range Rover and the sum of N40 million in compliance with the November 2018 court order.
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According to the group, by so doing, the Chairman of the anti-graft agency is still acting in contempt of the court as he should be at a correctional facility and in no position to function or sign any document as the Chairman of the agency pending the vacation of the court order.
It also expressed worry over Bawa’s response to National Assembly correspondents, Tuesday, that the law would take its course. HURIWA said the course of law, for now, is that he should be in Kuje prison as a new convict and should have no business with the arm of government responsible for lawmaking, which is the legislature.
HURIWA’s call, which is contained in a statement released by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, on Wednesday, comes on the heels of the position of a legal practitioner Mr. Maxwell Okpara, who said that Bawa would remain a convict until the vacation of the court order.
Fielding questions during the Wednesday edition of Political Platform, a Raypower Radio programme, Okpara said, “I want Nigerians to know that the person who is occupying the position of the EFCC Chairman as we speak now is an ex-convict. I am telling you that as we speak now, our Chairman of the EFCC is an ex-convict and whatever documents he signed between yesterday and today, all those documents are a nullity because an ex-convict cannot sign all those documents.
“That particular order convicting him has not been set aside and until it is set aside, he stands as an ex-convict. There is no order to stay. There is no motion to stay.
“He inherited that office from somebody. He received handover notes. He received the cases that were pending in courts. He received the orders that had been made before the courts. But he chose the ones that he would obey and the ones that he would not obey. And he did not go to court to explain himself.
“Once an order of court is made, whether rightly given or wrongly given, it stands to be the order until it is set aside.
“The point I am making is that one of the criteria for occupying the position of the Chairman of the EFCC is that you must not be an ex-convict. As we speak now, he is expected to step aside.
“The budget defence he did at the National Assembly yesterday is also wrong. In fact, I am conducting research as we speak now and probably by Monday, I will approach the court.
“As at the time Bode George was pursuing his case, he was still at Kirikiri maximum prison until the Supreme Court set it aside. Orji Uzo Kalu was there in Kirikiri prison until the court set aside the order convicting him.
“But as for the EFCC, Department of State Services, Police, and others, when you serve them a court order, if you write them a letter, they would say they are still reviewing it. A police constable would tell you that we are still reviewing a court’s judgment. So, I think this is a wakeup call.”
Commenting on the issue, HURIWA said: “The excuses by the EFCC that its chief executive, Mr. Abdulrasheed Bawa was not in office when the court order was handed down on 27th November 2018 does not make sense.
“Are they trying to say the Bawa, who has by the way been part and parcel of the Commission since inception, was not aware of the order or did not receive any handover note?
“The truth is that the non-compliance with the November 2021 order for four good years is perceived in many quarters as true to the character of the EFCC and other law enforcement agencies. The EFCC is being accused of being unfortunately reduced to a tool for political witch-hunt and the disregard for the rule of law is a norm, not an exception to them.
“This hydra-headed monster of selective application of the law, depending on the political alignment and sometimes the region and religion of the person in question, will continue to hunt the agency until it turns a new leaf. We expect that the young man heading the EFCC shouldn’t continue the trajectory of reckless disobedience of court orders that his predecessors were notorious for.
“We, therefore, call on the IGP to enforce the law and enjoin the rest of the law enforcement agencies who are fond of exalting themselves above the laws of the land to learn from Bawa’s fate. EFCC Chairman should also on his own volition report at Kuje prison if the IGP has disobeyed the court order and failed to do the needful by conveying him to the prison premises pending the hearing and determination of his application for stay of execution.”
