Suspended EFCC Chairman, Bawa Spends Five Weeks In DSS Custody Without Trial

Abdulrasheed Bawa, the suspended Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, has spent about five weeks (34 days) in the custody of the Department of State Services after he was arrested on June 14, hours after his suspension by President Bola Tinubu.

Truetells Nigeria had reported how Abdulrasheed Bawa, refused to write statements at the secret police’s facility.

SaharaReporters further gathered that Bawa told investigators that the DSS had no right to detain him without charges, hence his refusal to write any statements in custody.

Bawa has been in detention along with Godwin Emefiele, the suspended governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, since they were suspended from their respective offices by the President Bola Tinubu’s administration over corruption allegations and abuse of office.

According to the report, Bawa had refused to cooperate with DSS investigators, protesting against his detention without charges.

“The detained EFCC chairman has refused to write statements; he told DSS they have no right to detain him without charges.

“He was also accused of shielding former Governor of Zamfara, Abdulaziz Yari, while helping him to hunt down his opponents,” one of the sources had revealed.

“So far since his detention, he has vehemently refused to cooperate with DSS investigators,” another top source noted.
However, SaharaReporters later learnt that Bawa had been moved from the DSS headquarters to one of its private facilities.

“They’ve taken Bawa from DSS headquarters to one of their private facilities to have total control over him after he refused to write statements requested from him,” a top security source had said.

A civil rights lawyer and Managing Partner at Abuja-based law firm, Law Corridor, Pelumi Olajengbesi, had tackled DSS over the continued detention of AbdulRasheed Bawa.

In a statement on Tuesday in Abuja, Olajengbesi had said the prolonged detention of Bawa by the secret police was illegal and an embarrassment to the nation’s justice system.

Olajengbesi said the DSS should charge Bawa to court for alleged offences levelled against his office as EFCC boss or immediately release him to rejoin his family members.

SaharaReporters had exclusively reported that Emefiele named Bawa as an accomplice in the Naira redesign scam that rocked the country some months ago.

Bawa’s invitation and grilling by the DSS came days after Emefiele was arrested and flown from Lagos to Abuja to also face interrogations over alleged corruption and abuse of office.

On November 23, 2022, then-President Muhammadu Buhari alongside Emefiele unveiled new naira notes in denominations of N200, N500 and N1,000. Emefiele insisted that the old notes would cease to be legal tender from January 31, 2023.

Addressing journalists after the event, Emefiele insisted that the move was not targeted at anyone as there were speculations that the move was pushed by the cabal in the Presidency and targeted at preventing Bola Tinubu, then-presidential candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress from winning the February 25, 2023 election.

The policy had caused Nigerians untold hardship due to the scarcity of naira notes with the CBN unable to meet the demand for new notes. The policy led to a cash crisis and long queues at banks and ATMs.