By Gom Mirian, Abuja

 Barely 24 hours after President Bola Ahmed Tinubu ordered the indefinite suspension of Abdulrasheed Bawa, Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission(EFCC), information has emerged about his many wrong doings that may cost him the plum job.

DAILY ASSET investigations revealed that on Just three month into his tenure on assumption of office, Bawa created a severance package in which he as chairman would be rewarded with a handsome N500million by the commission at the end of his tenure.

 While the staff were happy for their own financial rewards, they frowned at the staggering sum, th Chairman recommended and approved for himself and those that will come after him.

Worse still was the arbitrariness in making the severance package, which took a retroactive effect for just one female staff, who had formally retired from the commission before the package took effect.

A source at the Commission familiar with the situation told DAILY ASSET that the said female staff was controversially retained by Bawa in what had spanned a three-year contract and made the only beneficiary in the package among those that retired with her in 2021.

The said female staff it was also learnt, hails from the same  Kebbi State with Bawa and has family bonds with  him through marriage.

Bawa’s suspension was allegedly greeted with jubilation by staff of the Commission both at the headquarters and the state offices over what a source described as his administrative high handedness.

 As the staff of the Commission erupted in celebration yesterday with the news of Bawa’s ouster, they sadly recall that he stopped the payment of their overtime entitlement which all of his predecessors authorise for the staff. The overtime allowance paid by the commission became necessary given that rather that close for work by 4pm going by Civil Service Rule, EFCC staff officially close by 5pm, meaning that they are compelled by the  Commission’s Staff Regulations to put in an extra hour daily.
Bawa took high-handedness to the next level in the commission, populating his office with a coterie of loyalists chosen on the basis of religion and ethnicity who on account of the rules he made brazenly interdict directors from seeing him.

DAILY ASSET was told that a Grade Level 17 Directors of the Commission were compelled to fill access form, vetted by his chief of staff, a junior officer before they could be granted passage to meet Bawa.

The only clear duty in the nebulous responsibility given to her by Bawa was evaluating the feasibility of the commission operating a radio station which Magu got its license about five years ago.

Though he was the leader of the country’s foremost anti-graft agency, integrity is hardly one of Bawa’s strongest points, investigations revealed.

As the then Head of Port Harcourt Zonal Office, now designated as zonal command, sources informed that over 50 trucks forfeited to the federal government by convicts of illegal oil bunkering went missing under his watch.

The missing trucks were said to be part of a larger whole, totalling over 400, which the then secretary of the commission, Mr Ola Olukayode had gone to Port Zonal Command to document, preparatory to their auctioning to members of the public.

The sudden disappearance of the trucks just two months after their documentation forced the then chair of the commission, Mr Ibrahim Magu to redeploy Bawa in anger to the commission’s Training School in Karu, Abuja.

 A more angered Olukayode was said to have  argued at the time that the redeployment was rather a slap on the wrist and that Bawa ought to be arrested and prosecuted.

However, left alone to float  in the Training School, Bawa ws said to have teamed with the commission’s supervising Minister and the Attorney General of the Federation(AGF),  Abubakar Malami, who also hails from the same Kebbi  state with him to disgrace  Magu out of office.

With Magu out and facing judicial investigation, Bawa was immediately rewarded by Malami with a posting to the premium Lagos Zonal Command as Head, from where he subsequently recommended him to former President, Muhammasu Buhari as chairman of the commission.

Sources at the  Commission said the development was clearly seen as quid pro quo for all the false and misleading testimonies Bawa provided for Malami in his witch hunt investigative judicial panel of inquiry against Magu.
Bawa’s days as Zonal Commander in Lagos were said to be only remarkable for his muck racking efforts against Alpha Beta company, a firm visible in revenue consultancy services to Lagos State Government believed then  to be linked to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Though he was said to have realised nothing from all of he scavenged against the company, his efforts at seeking to tarnish Alpha Beta’s image later emerged as an attempt to prove that the ousted Magu was too “protective” of the company.

Another source revealed that Bawa was allegedly spending lavishly well beyond his capacity as a public servant.

A group, Coalition for Good Governance at a news conference in Abuja shortly  after his sack  alleged that he travelled to Saudi Arabia on pilgrimage with about 30 persons, mostly family members  on his sponsorship and that each was paid accommodation worth $15,000 for about 10 days during the religious trip.

The group alleged that he must shave spent about $300,000  during the trip, an amount the group claimed was far above his statutory income.

The above, coupled with the allegation of demand for $2million bribe levelled by the immediate past Governor of Zamfara State, Bello Muhammad Matawalle among other infractions may have left Tinubu with no option than axe the EFCC boss, investigatins showed.