Mr Bawa, the newly confirmed Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), has told the Senate that it costs N20million to prosecute just a single corruption case in Nigeria.
Mr Bawa who was confirmed by the Senate on Wednesday 24th February 2021, while answering questions from the Senators, and asking for proper funding for the agency, said:
“If we have proper funding, I can tell you that law enforcement will be different in this country. A single case may cost you maybe N20 million. What I believe is proper funding can change the face of law enforcement in this country,” – Mr Bawa said.
He also gave some clarifications to some questions that have been begging for answers, as the Senate engaged him in a screening session that lasted for over two hours.
Abdulrasheed Bawa during his screening, used the opportunity to state his vision for the EFCC as he responded to questions by the lawmakers. First, he promised to lead the EFCC by example and cut down discretion in the conduct of its affairs through institutionalizing a Standard Operating Procedure.
What I envisage the EFCC to do is to ensure that we work on our own Standard Operational Procedure, to improve on our Standard Operational Procedures so much so that, all that is expected of us is written down somewhere in a document to curtail the use of discretion from the office of the Executive Chairman down to the ordinary investigator
We are looking forward to an EFCC whereby I as the Executive Chairman if I give an instruction to a junior officer, he will look at my face and say, Sir I understand your instruction but I will not be able to do it because of so and so Section governing the rules and regulations of the EFCC”, he said.
He also stated that he was interested in establishing synergy with other law enforcement organizations, both nationally and internationally, and aggressively pursue the repatriation of seized assets.
“I have talked on the issue of synergy between the EFCC and sister security agencies in the country as well as the work I envisage to do together with our foreign strategic partners. We are going to work on that, we are going to strengthen it.
The EFCC is not a lone ranger, we are going to reach out. The job of fighting economic and financial crimes is for everybody to be on board, and we will ensure that because we don’t have monopoly of knowledge.”
The new EFCC Chairman equally expressed his desire to upgrade the skills of staff of the Commission through training, while also seeking the support of the lawmakers by way of appropriation.
In his words, “regarding the issue of repositioning, I have talked about processes and procedures and the law, but the backbone of every organization is its human resource.
I hope and pray that we will still come back to this chamber for proper appropriation to enable us build the capacity of our staff at the EFCC and to meet up with the current challenges and new typologies of crime as well as trends in money laundering so that,.at the end of the day, our vision of ridding this country of economic and financial crimes is actualized” he said.