Bawa denies selling assets seized by EFCC

Abdulrasheed Bawa, who was nominated for the position of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission chairman, Wednesday said he has never sold any asset recovered by the commission.

“I never sold a single truck at the Port Harcourt office; the head office handled that at the time,” Bawa said on the Senate floor during his screening on Wednesday.

“Anybody that is familiar with the processes of the EFCC knows that the chairman doesn’t have the power to sell an asset but the secretary of the agency.”

Bawa’s nomination was followed by allegations that he was involved in a theft while heading the anti-graft office in Port Harcourt.

Peoples Gazette, in a publication alleged that Bawa, was arrested and detained by the Agency under former Chairman, Ibrahim Magu, over illegal sale of 244 forfeited trucks to proxies in Port Harcourt.

The publication claimed that the illegal sale was uncovered by the suspended Secretary to the Commission, Ola Olukoyede, who alerted the former chairman, Ibrahim Magu, leading to Bawa’s detention and subsequent redeployment to the EFCC Academy, Abuja.

The commission also denied this allegation stating there was no such case against Bawa.

Bawa insisted that his tenure at the Port Harcourt office of the agency saw an uptick in the number of convictions recorded by EFCC.

“I took over the Port Harcourt office, they had 34 convictions but when I got there, we recorded 216 convictions,” Bawa said.

He said as head of the Port Harcourt zonal office, he did not have the power to sell any asset recovered under his watch, noting that the power to dispose of any asset lies with the secretary of the commission.