Olanipekun: EFCC Boss Must First Go To Prison Before Any Other Action

Olanipekun has revealed that EFCC Boss, Abdulrasheed Bawa must first go to prison before any other action.

CityNews Nigeria reports that the Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Ola Olanipekun, has called on the Inspector-General of Police to comply with a court order that committed the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Abdulrasheed Bawa to prison for contempt.

Olanipekun, who said Bawa was trying to cause anarchy in the country by flagrantly disobeying court orders, said Bawa had recently been committed to prison in a similar ruling by a Federal Capital Territory High Court in November.

“Well, at the last moment, the lawyers came to court and they could not give any reasonable argument so the court granted the application and made an order of committal. So he goes to prison.

“The Inspector-General of Police is going to carry out that order, he is going to go to prison or at the earliest time possible, he goes back to that court to go and purge himself of the contempt. All he has to do is to go and release that particular citizen and if there are other orders that the court has made, like in this particular case, the court has made an order for an apology to the citizen for detaining him in flagrant breach of his fundamental human rights. So he has to go ahead and make that apology.

“We must comply with the law. We must realise that this is a Federal Republic of Nigeria, a country that is founded on law, on procedure, on rule of law. He must comply with the orders. It is not something that he can just walk away from. And if he doesn’t purge himself of the contempt, he is going to remain in prison for as long as it takes him to purge himself of the contempt. If he purges himself of the contempt within 48 hours, he gets released from the prison, he doesn’t have to spend the whole of 14 days there. But the law has to be complied with.

“There is an order now for the Inspector-General of Police to comply with. So, we are now waiting to see whether the IGP will comply with this order. If he doesn’t comply, he himself will become liable for contempt.”

“We can’t just continue as if the law doesn’t exist. The EFCC or the Police or any institution whatsoever, are all set up by statute, so, they must operate within the ambit of the law,” Olanipekun noted.