Accuse him of embarassing anti-graft fight, violating court orders

Over 100 Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), yesterday, marched on Lagos streets in continuation of their demand for removal of Abdulrasheed Bawa as Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

They had kick-started their “Protest Against Politicisation of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Disobedience of Court Orders and Infringement on Human Rights of Nigerians” on Friday.

Yesterday’s leg was third in their push to get Bawa removed from office because, according to them, he had turned the anti-graft agency into a “sensational media agency, churning out deliberate misinformation on almost a daily basis to strengthen a political cause.”

Stating that they will not fold their arms and watch the country’s global anti-corruption outlook slip into a mess “all in the name of the anti-democratic tendencies of a few recalcitrant leaders,” the CSOs stated that Bawa has to go, as he had allegedly become an embarrassment to the fight against corruption in Nigeria.

The ‘Bawa Must Go’ protesters were by the Chairman of Centre for Anti-corruption and Open Leadership, Debo Adeniran; Executive Director, Zero Graft Centre, Kolawole Sanchez-Jude; Chairman, Coalition Against Corruption and Bad Governance, Toyin Raheem; Executive Director, Centre for Public Accountability, Olufemi Lawson; spokesperson for Transparency and Accountability Group, Ayodeji Ologun; Director, Activists for Good Governance, Declan Ihehaire and Ahmed Balogun of Media Rights Concern, among others.

Asked why they wanted the EFCC helmsman sacked, Adeniran stated: “Bawa has become an embarrassment to the fight against corruption in Nigeria. A serial violator of court order is not fit to head an agency that is supposed to sanitise the society.