Bola Badmus- Lagos
Nigeria’s foremost Anti-corruption Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), numbering over 100, again on Monday trooped out on the streets of Lagos, with their members and supporters, in continuation of their “Protest Against Politicisation of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Disobedience of Court Orders and Infringement on Human Rights of Nigerians.”
Monday’s protest was the third in the series since the top activists began their call for the sack of the EFCC Chairman, Abdulrasheed Bawa, on Friday, insisting that EFCC’s current leadership had turned itself into a sensational media agency, churning out deliberate misinformation on almost a daily basis to strengthen a political cause.
The ‘Bawa Must Go’ protesters, led on Monday by the Chairman, 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, among others, however, said that as responsible CSOs, they would 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.”
This was just as the anti-corruption CSOs also hinted that they would petition the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) to demand that until the court order to arrest Bawa was effected, “no court should entertain any EFCC case henceforth.”
Others who were part of the protest include Executive Director Centre for Public Accountability, Olufemi Lawson; Spokesperson for the Transparency and Accountability Group, Ayodeji Ologun; Director, Activists for Good Governance, Declan Ihehaire; and Ahmed Balogun of Media Rights Concern, among others.
Speaking on the protest, Chairman of CACOL, Debo Adeniran, said Bawa had to be removed because he had allegedly become an embarrassment to the fight against corruption in Nigeria, describing the EFCC boss as a serial violator of court order and not fit to be the Head of an agency that is supposed to sanitise the society.
“We are not only asking him (Bawa) to quit. We ask the authorities to remove him because he has become an embarrassment to the fight against corruption. Any act of dishonesty is corruption.
“Anything that is against the law and deliberately done with impunity is corruption. It doesn’t matter how you feel about a case. Even if a drunken judge gives a verdict on any issue taken to court, you are bound to obey the court order.
“For several years, we have criticised the military regimes and civilian administrations that have ruled us with impunity. Impunity comes when the court is no longer seen as an arbiter between the people and the provisions of the extant laws. We rely on the courts to adjudicate matters of conflict between the people and the system. And anytime anyone runs against the system, the court will adjudicate,” he said.
“A situation whereby somebody is so powerful, somebody is so influential, somebody sees that he has a larger than life image and decides that he is not going to respect our law courts or the laws of the land, it is against the rule of natural justice, it is against the ethos of democratic practice, it is against the principles of human rights.
“So, a serial violator of court order is not fit to be the head of an agency that is supposed to sanitise the society,” he declared.
Other leaders of the CSOs, who took turns speaking with the media, alleged that some EFCC officials had confided in their members that they were not happy that the Commission appeared to be focusing mainly on settling political scores rather than confronting its big mandate.
According to Olufemi Lawson, “You can’t run to the same courts you disrespect to get a judgement for your cases. And you can’t also choose which court judgement to obey. If Bawa has been committed to prison, he has no business in office now. And someone who has flouted the court’s order on several occasions cannot head an agency as sensitive as EFCC.
“Some of their officials had confided in our members at different times that they were not happy that the Commission appears to focus more on settling political scores than actually confronting its big mandate.”
Spokesperson for the Transparency and Accountability Group, Ayodeji Ologun, said many cases of genuine corruption were left unattended to under Bawa, alleging that the EFCC boss came on board through vendetta and had proved in the period “he has been in office that he might have been appointed to serve as a tool for political assault on opponents of his sponsors.”
Other CSO leaders at the protest were Ochiaga Jude, Centre for Ethics and Good Governance, Barr. Cletus Okedube, Barr. Johnson Areola, Barr. George Sanda, among other notable activists, lawyers, and women’s rights NGOs.
