Why I Will Not Sleep In Prison, EFCC Chairman, Bawa Speaks After Committal For Contempt

Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Abdulrashid Bawa, has explained why he would not sleep in Kuje Prison despite his committal to prison for contempt by an FCT High Court.

GWG.NG had reported how Mr Bawa was committed to prison by an Abuja high court sitting in Maitama over his failure to heed the directive of the court.

The court had ordered the EFCC to return to a defendant, a former Director of Operations at the Nigerian Air Force (NAF), Air Vice Marshal (AVM) Rufus Adeniyi Ojuawo, his Range Rover, and N40 million.

The EFCC had arraigned Ojuawo on a two-count charge before Justice Muawiyah Baba Idris of the High Court of the FCT in Nyanya in 2016.

He was accused of receiving N40 million and a Range Rover Sport (Supercharged) from one Hima Aboubakar of Societe D’Equipment Internationaux Nigeria Limited.

Ojuawo, in a suit filed by his lawyer, R.N. Ojabo, complained that the EFCC declined to comply with the order for the release of his seized property made by the court in a judgment delivered on November 21, 2018.

In the October 28, 2022 ruling, Justice Chizoba Oji held 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 (Supercharged) and the sum of N40, 000,000.00 (Forty Million Naira).”

However, the commission failed to comply with the order of the court.

Consequently, the Judge ordered that Bawa should be committed to prison at the Kuje Correctional Centre for his wilful disobedience to the order of the court.

Reacting to the judgement in a chat with Daily Trust correspondent and some other journalists, the EFCC chairman, Bawa, said an appeal had been filed and hence according to him there was no need for him to sleep in the prison on Tuesday.

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