EFCC Chair: I won’t submit to blackmail of private interests

Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Abdulrasheed Bawa, has declared that he won’t submit to blackmail or act in any way predetermined or teleguided by private interests.

Bawa said he will only be guided by the commission’s mandate and its Standard Operating Procedure.

The EFCC chairman dismissed the report that he is travelling abroad with the former Chairman of the defunct Skye Bank, Mr. Tunde Ayeni.

He stated that there is no truth in the report that he is on a clandestine and self-serving mission abroad with Ayeni.

The EFCC chairman, according to the commission’s spokesman, Wilson Uwujaren, is currently on an approved trip abroad.

The Star spoke with Ayeni on Friday. He also debunked the report.

“I’m in my Abuja office as I speak with you. I don’t know why they are fixated about my name. There is no truth in the report please,” Ayeni told The Star.

Uwujaren said: “The attention of the Commission has been drawn to a so-called “exclusive’’ news report making the rounds on social media to the effect that the EFCC Chairman, Abdulrasheed Bawa and former Chairman of the defunct Skye Bank, Mr. Tunde Ayeni, are travelling together, abroad, on a clandestine, self-serving mission.

“The story, which vainly tries to push a certain malodorous agenda, is absolutely false.

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“If it were not for its potential to confound and confuse the unwary, the commission would have ignored the story. However, there is every need to set the facts straight.

“To start with, there was never a meeting and certainly no “plan” between the EFCC Chair and Mr. Ayeni to go anywhere together.

“Furthermore, while the EFCC Chairman is at this time on an approved mission abroad, Ayeni, whom the fiction-turned-news story says is on a clandestine trip with Mr. Bawa, is, from checks, right here in Nigeria. A cursory check would have confirmed that.

“If the design is to get the commission to compromise its mandate to investigate and prosecute all cases of economic and financial crimes, then the purveyors of the tendentious story have failed. Woefully.

“No matter what, the Commission will be guided only by that mandate and its very clear Standard Operating Procedure and will not be blackmailed or act in any way predetermined or teleguided by private interests. The EFCC will only pursue the public interest as defined by the law establishing the Commission.”

The Star