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EFCC is not a debt recovery agency, Bawa warns Nigerians

Abdulrasheed Bawa

The Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Abdulrasheed Bawa has warned the general populace that the commission is not a debt recovery agency for business transactions gone wrong.

The EFCC boss said this while speaking as one of the panellists at the Alao Aka-Bashorun Memorial Lecture, which was held yesterday in Lagos.

The lecture was part of the activities to commemorate the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Ikeja Branch, Law Week 2021.

Bawa, represented by Anselm Ozioko, the Head of the Legal Department of the EFCC, spoke on the topic: “Our Role in the Effective Implementation of Nigeria’s Anti-Corruption Law”.

He said that there was a general misconception by members of the public that the EFCC was a debt recovery agency and urged the public to stop asking the anti-graft agency to recover debts.

“I state with all sense of responsibility that members of the public, including legal practitioners, in the course of carrying out recovery for their clients, should stop urging us (the Commission) to do so.

“I must also state that in the course of investigating a financial crime, it is possible that a sum of money transferred from the account of a nominal complainant, may be recovered as an exhibit.

“In certain circumstances, the exhibits may be released to the complainant or the said exhibit will be used for the prosecution of the suspect in court.

“At the end of a successful prosecution, the court may grant a Restitutive Order for the nominal complainant, in whom the exhibit will be released to the nominal complainant pursuant to the court order,” Bawa said.

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