EFCC chair, Bawa, reacts to contempt judgement

The Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Abdulrasheed Bawa, said he has appealed the verdict of the Abuja High Court that convicted him for contempt of the court.

Mr Bawa disclosed this while speaking to journalists after defending the commission’s budget proposals before the House of Representatives Committee on Anti-Corruption.

“We have appealed against it already so we will allow the natural course of the law to take its effect,” he said.

The judge, Chizoba Oji, had in a ruling on 28 October convicted Mr Bawa for failing to carry out the order of the court in a case involving the Director of Operations at the Nigerian Air Force (NAF), Rufus Ojuawo.

The EFCC had arraigned Mr Ojuawo on a two-count charge before the High Court of the FCT in Nyanya, presided over by Muawiyah Idris, in 2016.

Mr Ojuawo was accused of receiving N40 million and a Range Rover Sport from one Hima Aboubakar of Societe D’Equipment Internationaux Nigeria Limited.

The court had in 2018 ordered EFCC to return the properties to Mr Ojuawo.

Mr Ojuawo approached the court again over the non-compliance of the EFCC with the verdict.

Following this, the court ordered the EFCC boss to be committed to prison at Kuje Correctional Centre for his disobedience.

In its verdict, the court ruled that, “The Chairman Economic and Financial Crimes Commission is in contempt of the orders of this honourable court made on November 21st 2018 directing the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Abuja to return to the applicant his Range Rover (Super charge) and the sum of N40, 000,000.00 (Forty Million Naira).

“Having continued wilfully in disobedience to the order of this court, he should be committed to prison at Kuje Correctional Centre for his disobedience, and continued disobedience of the said order of court made on November 21st, 2018, until he purges himself of the contempt.”