By Halimah Olamide
The Transparency International has said that Wednesday suspension of the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission AbdulRasheed Bawa was expected.
Auwal Rafsanjani, Head of the TI in Nigeria, while reacting to the indefinite suspension, said the removal of Bawa only follows that tradition of how his predecessors had been taken out of office.
He said with then political interests associated with some graft cases against some officials associated with the current government, it was obvious that Bawa would not be in office for long.
He said, “The suspension did not come to us by surprise, this is because of the way and manner the previous regimes or governments have always removed the EFCC leaders when they come into power.
”For this development, with regard to the removal of the EFCC chairman, we believe that already we knew that he was going to be removed because of so many political interests and changes that can happen.”
He said that Tinubu might not likely retain Bawa because of how he was appointed and his affiliation.
”He will want to get rid of anything that has to do with that.
”Also there are some political interests, some politicians associated with the government also have issues with the current suspended EFCC chairman and therefore they are likely not to be comfortable to have him there.”
”Therefore, it is making it difficult to do what ordinarily government agency is supposed to do.
”So, we need to look at it from that context and from that perspective, so I’m not surprised.”
He said after the removal of Bawa, the current government must allow the battle against corruption to continue adding that technically competent people should be engaged to man such positions.