The suspended Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Abdulrasheed Bawa, has been reportedly moved from the headquarters of the Department of State Services (DSS) to a private facility, according to a report by SaharaReporters.
Bawa, it was gathered pointedly told his interrogators that the DSS had no right to detain him without charges thus, his allege refusal to write any statements in custody.
It was gathered that Bawa was moved out of the headquarters of the DSS to one of its private facilities in order to have total control over him following his refusal to write statements requested of him,” a top security source told SaharaReporters.
The suspended Chairman of the EFCC (Bawa) has been in detention along with Godwin Emefiele, the suspended governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria since their suspension from their respective offices by President Bola Tinubu’s administration over alleged corruption and abuse of office.
It was gathered that before moving him to the private facility, Bawa refused to cooperate with the DSS investigators, protesting against his detention without charges.
“Bawa was accused of shielding former Governor of Zamfara, Senator Abdulaziz Yari, while helping him to hunt down his opponents,” a source said in chats with SaharaReporters.
“So far since his detention, he has vehemently refused to cooperate with DSS investigators,” another top source had noted.
SaharaReporters had exclusively reported that Emefiele named Bawa as an accomplice in the Naira redesign scam that rocked the country some months ago.
Bawa’s invitation and grilling by the DSS came days after Emefiele was arrested and flown from Lagos to Abuja to also face interrogations over alleged corruption and abuse of office.
On November 23, 2022, then-President Muhammadu Buhari, alongside Emefiele unveiled new naira notes in denominations of N200, N500 and N1,000 with a pronouncement by Emefiele that the old notes would cease to be legal tender from January 31, 2023.
Emefiele had said that the move was not targeted at anyone as there were speculations that the move was pushed by the cabal in the Presidency and targeted at preventing Bola Tinubu, then-presidential candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress from winning the February 25, 2023 election.
The policy caused Nigerians untold hardship due to the scarcity of naira notes with the CBN unable to meet the demand for new notes thus, a cash crisis and long queues at banks and ATMs.
“Emefiele, who is currently in the custody of the DSS is the reason why the EFCC chairman has been detained.
While Emefiele, who is cooperating with the DSS was believed to had revealed that it was Bawa, who raised a memo to former President Buhari, asking that the Naira should be redesigned to stem money laundering during the 2023 election,” a top source revealed.
According to the source; “Bawa confronted Emefiel and said that he (Emefiele) and the former Attorney-General of the Federation (Abubakar) Malami were the ones that came to him to raise the memo because they suspected Tinubu had warehouses stuffed with naira notes,” the source had added.
In February and March 2023, Nigerians were subjected to extreme difficulty with the Naira redesign and cashless policy due to the scarcity of the new Naira notes.
To make matters worse, Emefiele refused to obey a Supreme Court ruling which made the old notes legal tender till December 31, 2023 before former President Buhari distanced himself from the disobedience to the court order.
…Sourced from SaharaReporters