How N40m Funds, Range Rover Landed EFCC Chairman Into Kuje Prison

The Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Mr. Abdulrasheed Bawa, has been ordered to be remanded in prison custody by an Abuja High Court sitting in Maitama as a result of his alleged disobedience to a legitimate court order.

The anti-graft agency seized a Range Rover Sport (Super Charge) car worth N40 million from a former director of operations at the Nigerian Air Force, NAF, Air Vice Marshal, AVM, Rufus Adeniyi Ojuawo. The court, in a decision written by Justice Chizoba Oji, found the EFCC boss guilty of contempt of court.

On November 21, 2018, Justice Orji issued an order directing the Commission to give the exotic car back to AVM Ojuawo, who was facing charges.

For allegedly accepting N40 million and a Range Rover Sport from one Hima Aboubakar of Societe D’Equipment Internationalnaux Nigeria Limited, the former NAF Director of Operations was docked before trial judge Muawiyah Baba Idris of the High Court of the FCT at Nyanya in 2016.

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He was charged criminally with two counts.

In 2018, the top court mandated that the defendant receive his seized vehicle back after the defendant brought a second lawsuit against the Commission.

However, four years after the order was issued, the defendant’s attorney, Mr. R.N. Ojabo, alerted the court to the fact that the EFCC had not yet complied with it.

Irked by the development, Justice Orji, ordered the arrest and remand of the EFCC Chairman over his wilful disobedience to an extant order of the court.

The statement reads, “The Chairman of the 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 (Super charge) and the sum of N40, 000,000.00 (Forty Million Naira).

“Having continued wilfully in disobedience to the order of this court, he should be committed to prison at Kuje Correctional Centre for his disobedience, and continued disobedience of the said order of court made on November 21st, 2018, until he purges himself of the contempt.”