In few months, Bawa will be seen as either a national boon or disaster. He will be hailed as a round peg in a round hole or tirelessly maligned as the fig that lets down the leaf; the affliction that has to be concealed or expunged. Until then, Bawa will stew in metamorphosis, as he dissolves into multiple identities characterised by the industry’s familiar bogeys, even as you read.
Yes, Bawa, despite his brilliance and touted vigour, may hardly be a match for Nigeria’s predatory band of cowboys in the banking sector and cliques in the energy sector. But his office demands that he assumes a front, thus his frantic posturing and pretension to purpose and valour. It would be delightful however, to see Bawa succeed where his predecessors failed woefully but he needs generous doses of forthrightness to do that. He needs to be a man or the best form of public servant that his employer, President Muhammadu Buhari, wants him to epitomise. Can he?
Men and women whose dissolute wiles are spurred by the most venal and perverted business ethics, are currently running circles around the new boss, thus arousing fears about his ability to deflect any form of mischief directed at him.
If Bawa were truly a virtuous man, an honourable leader whose administration is immune to mischief of every kind, he would be invulnerable to the devious plots and machinations of such men and women. But is he?
No doubt, Abdulrasheed Bawa’s emergence as the new head honcho is one appointment that ticks all the right boxes. Those who are privy to the inner workings of the EFCC opine that Bawa appointment was always a matter of when, not if, as he has distinguished himself over the years. Bawa’s wealth of experience and unflinching dedication to duty has been cited as the major reasons that will finally take the EFCC to its lost glorious days.
On Tuesday, the presidency announced Bawa’s appointment to lead the anti-graft agency which has been enmeshed in corruption scandal following the suspension of Ibrahim Magu, its former acting head. The previous chief executives were all police officers and assumed office at older ages: Nuhu Ribadu was 42 at the time of his appointment in 2003; Farida Waziri was 58 in 2008; Ibrahim Lamorde was 50 in 2012; and Magu was 52 in 2015.
Not only will he be the agency’s youngest chairman in its 18-year history, he will also be the first chairman to be appointed from among the trained cadets of the EFCC academy from where he graduated in February 2017.
Predictably, however, as it is often the norm with people in high places, career sycophants, extremely corrupt businessmen, political parasites, ludicrous and somewhat puerile gang of high society urchins have begun to heap earned and unearned accolades on this young man in the last 24 hours. Many have written poetry in his praise.
As the anti-graft czar basks in the flurry of his adoration by political parasites, let him not forget the words of Boris Pasternak. The Russian poet and novelist avers that: “Who should remain alive and praised; who should stay dead without renown depends upon criteria that powerful sycophants lay down.” Pasternak’s summation could never be more apt; among other truths, it emphasizes the desperation and astounding vanity of sycophants singing the praises of Bawa in order to put their claws in him. It would be recalled that such career sycophants misled former EFCC chairman, Ibrahim Magu. The objective of the group was simple: to reap bountifully from him.
Funnily enough, Magu’s phones are no longer buzzing like high-pitched alarums. This radical turn in the fortunes of the former EFCC boss, has become the stuff of random gossip in Nigeria’s political circles as not a few people are eager to see how it will end for him. Indeed, friendship is overrated. Oftentimes it leaves a man vulnerable to the elements. It was a firm belief in friendship that cost the legendary Julius Caesar his life; eventually, he was betrayed by Brutus, his bosom friend and confidant. Likewise, a trust in friendship has left Magu an easy mark for treacherous friends.
It is interesting to know that this same group of people formed an impenetrable ring around Ribadu, Lamorde and Farida. Today, the fortune hunters have shifted their allegiance from Magu and transferred it to Bawa.
Interestingly, however, Bawa joined the EFCC in 2005 and was deployed to the Lagos zonal office. Since then, he has served under all the previous chairpersons of the commission and held key positions.
According to his curriculum vitae, he has investigated a number of high-profile cases at the EFCC in recent years.
Since 2015 when President Muhammadu Buhari took office, the deputy chief detective superintendent has been leading investigations into the corruption allegations against Diezani Alison Madueke, former minister of petroleum resources accused of looting billions of naira from Nigeria’s treasury.
The anti-graft agency is already seeking to extradite the former minister from the United Kingdom where she relocated shortly before the inception of Buhari’s administration.
Also in Bawa’s books is Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu, former governor of Niger who is being prosecuted for allegedly laundering N2 billion belonging to the state government.
Bawa was involved in other prominent cases such as the $6.8 billion petroleum subsidy fraud scandal that rocked the Goodluck Jonathan administration, controversial oil deals involving Atlantic Energy Drilling Concepts (AEDC) Ltd that cost Nigeria huge sums of money between 2011 and 2015, shady crude oil swap deals in which Nigeria lost billions of naira to between 2014 and 2015 among others
However, Bawa should be very careful of some people who are just all out to use and dump him. Nonetheless, he is either a failure or success in process.
