How Buhari’s New EFCC Boss, Bawa Was Once Arrested For Theft

“The government said Magu and others were arrested and flushed out to save the EFCC from institutional damage,” an official said. “But how can you secure people’s confidence if you only trade one crooked officer for another?”

Five anti-graft officials who spoke with the Gazette for this story wished to remain anonymous, citing their active engagement status and a lack of clearance to speak to journalists on a matter that was still under investigation. The Gazette agreed not to identify them in accordance with its policy on anonymous sources.

Mr. Bawa was accused of selling at least 244 trucks worth between N20-30 million each to his proxies at N100,000, or slightly more, per unit.

A proxy sold one of the tankers to a businessman in Ibadan for N14.8 million, officials said, lamenting that the businessman has been evading invitation and the agency is reluctant to declare him wanted in order not to draw public attention to the investigation.

Officials said Mr. Bawa’s handling of the trucks had deprived the Nigerian people of at least N4.88 billion in potential loot recovery.

“If you take a conservative approach and multiply the trucks by N20 million each, even though some were far above that price, you will arrive at N4.88 billion for the 244 trucks he sold out,” a senior EFCC official said. “So Bawa is being compensated for ensuring that nearly N5 billion did not go into the public treasury.”

Procedurally, recovered cash and assets are returned to the public coffers upon conclusion of forfeiture proceedings in court. While some of the 244 trucks have been declared as proceeds of corruption by the Federal High Court, the Gazette learnt that forfeiture proceedings on most of them have yet to be concluded before Mr. Bawa sold them off.

Name dropped

Mr. Bawa, a deputy chief detective superintendent, was first confronted by Ola Olukoyede, then EFCC secretary, about the whereabouts of petrol tankers that were under forfeiture by Port-Harcourt zonal office in late 2019, multiple sources, including one official who was present, told the Gazette.

For nearly two weeks, Mr. Bawa declined multiple requests for comment from the Gazette for this story.

Wilson Uwujaren, chief spokesman for the EFCC, said he could not provide information on the status of the probe and the decision of moving a subject of an active investigation to Lagos.

“Since the issues of assets are already before the presidential panel, for now we cannot comment on those things,” Mr. Uwujaren told the Gazette on Thursday afternoon.

But in January, Mr. Uwujaren defended Mr. Bawa’s action publicly, saying there was no wrongdoing in the sale of the trucks. Nonetheless, he said in the same statement that a probe had been ordered into the suspicious auction.

Mr. Olukoyede had received complaints that Mr. Bawa was tampering with seized assets that were still undergoing forfeiture proceedings in court. It is illegal to take possession of a citizen’s assets without a due process, which involves getting a federal judge to declare such assets as proceeds of public loot.

“He was asked to explain what happened to over 240 trucks that the zonal office was trying to secure their forfeitures,” a source said. “But he was unable to explain.”

The source said Mr. Bawa initially told Mr. Olukoyede that he got the directives to sell the trucks from Mr. Magu, but he declined to write that claim in his statement.

“It turned out that he was just dropping names, or he was trying to protect Magu,” a source said. “He refused to write it in his statement that it was Magu who sent him.”

The source said Mr. Olukoyede immediately called Mr. Magu, who was away on an official trip at the time, with details of what transpired in Port-Harcourt. After concluding his findings, Mr. Olukoyede returned to Abuja, expecting Mr. Magu to take action upon his return from the trip.

Mr Olukoyede, who has since been suspended from office as part of the raging presidential probe, declined comments for this story.

“He was ordered to be detained in Port-Harcourt for several days,” another source familiar with the matter said. “He was then asked to report at the training school in Abuja, which we thought would be the end of his career.”

Mr. Magu did not return a request for comment. But in its January statement, the EFCC said Mr. Magu did not benefit from the controversial sale of the trucks, but instead allowed a transparent process to play out.

‘Unmerited and highly political’

Anti-graft detectives, mostly deputy chief detective superintendents, said they thought posting Mr. Bawa to the training school, known as ‘Siberia’ amongst personnel, would take him out of circulation.

They were, however, “disappointed” when a posting circular on August 8 said he had been transferred to Lagos.

“We saw him on the list as the new head of Lagos office, and everyone revolted,” the source said. “But our revolt was a quiet one.”

As a member of the elite ‘Course 1’, EFCC’s first set of cadets now mostly at grade-level 13, Mr. Bawa has flaunted his association with Mr Magu, and once acclaimed himself ‘anointed leader’ of the so-call ‘Magu Boys’, sources said.

Mr. Magu led the EFCC from November 2015 until his disgraceful ouster on July 7. He was accused of grossly enriching himself while arresting and prosecuting other Nigerians for graft.

Although a government panel that was raised to hear the charges has yet to return its recommendations, Mr. Magu strongly denied all corruption and abuse of power allegations and asked his lawyers to file court processes aimed at clearing his name.

Still, serving EFCC officials who believe Mr. Magu deserved his inglorious exit said his collaborators within the anti-graft office should have equally suffered a similar fate.

But rather than being affected by his ties to Mr. Magu, Mr. Bawa has instead been propelled to the very job he had deemed beyond reach, his colleagues said.

“He was a don of Magu Boys,” one of his colleagues said. “But he thought his career had finished when he was caught in Port-Harcourt, detained for days and later transferred to the EFCC training school in Karu.”

The EFCC’s zonal office in Lagos is seen as the agency’s main hub of operations, earning a long-standing dread as the nemesis of advanced-fee crooks, corporate racketeers, money launderers and other economic criminals in the commercial capital.

Mr. Bawa’s elevation as the head of Lagos zone, ‘de-facto vice-chairman’ as officers described it to the Gazette, stemmed from his foamy political ties than fortitude, sources said.

Despite being a close associate of Mr. Magu’s, Mr. Bawa managed to maintain a working relationship with Abubakar Malami, Nigeria’s controversial attorney-general who spent years waging supremacy war against the former head of EFCC, according to two EFCC officials familiar with his dealings.

“He was friends with both enemies,” an official said. “It is now clear that his transfer to Lagos is unmerited and highly political.”

Mr. Malami, himself a subject of multiple corruption claims he has denied, finally realised his plans to remove Mr. Magu from office after years of confrontation. He has since taken over the activities of the anti-graft agency and is believed to be behind a slate of policy changes aimed at undoing Mr. Magu’s legacy.

Both Mr. Malami and a spokesperson for his office did not return requests seeking comments about the attorney-general’s relationship with Mr. Bawa.