TheCable

Abdulrasheed Bawa, the chairperson of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), has challenged Bello Matawalle to write a petition against him if has committed any form of financial infractions. 

Speaking with BBC Hausa on Thursday, Bawa asked Matawalle, Zamfara governor, to report any governor who has committed financial crimes to the EFCC.

On Wednesday, the Zamfara governor asked the EFCC chairman to ensure that the agency’s probe does not target only outgoing governors but also officials in the presidency.

Matawalle said the planned investigation by the EFCC “must be holistic and not selective”.

Reacting to Matawalle’s comments, the anti-graft agency disclosed that it is probing the governor for allegedly diverting N70 billion meant for contracts in the state.

Asked during the interview to react to an allegation from Matawalle that the EFCC boss is not ” completely clean from corruption”, Bawa said the type of person who is 100 percent clean from corruption does not exist.

“Is there any human that is 100%? That type of person doesn’t exist. I read what he (Matawalle) said that we should investigate ministers and governors. We are doing our investigations on them. If he knows any governor that has done something wrong, he should report him to us,” he said.

“As I’m speaking to you now, we have a minister under our custody for about one week over N25b fraud. We are doing our work.

“Because someone has committed a crime doesn’t mean another person’s crime will not be an offence. Everyone will answer his own name.

“If he thinks I have done something wrong, there is the police, ICPC, and code of conduct, he can write to them and say this is what the EFCC chairman had done, and he should be investigated.

“I received a report on an investigation that was conducted (on Matawalle) where there was a contractor who was given about four billion naira.

“The contractor told EFCC he supplied the items he was paid for. When asked to show documents of proof of the supply, he said he doesn’t have them and he took the money to bureau de change to convert it to foreign currency and gave it to some government officials. That was what the contractor told us.

“There is another contractor too, who was paid over four billion for the construction of roads. A single stone wasn’t laid by the contractor.”