A spokesperson for the Transparency and Accountability Group, Ayodeji Ologun, who spoke on behalf of the anti-corruption CSOs, said the Coalition of Anti-corruption Organisations, could not watch the country’s legal system being bastardized by the selfish interests of a few, insisting that if Bawa was bent on playing politics, he should get a membership card from any of the political parties.

He said the need to press home their grievance strongly and call for the removal of the EFCC boss was founded on the realization that some anti-democratic elements were drawing the civil societies back into the fight against corruption.

According to the CSOs, the fixation of the EFCC boss on certain individuals and institutions “when grievous petitions capable of bringing the economy down are left unattended, gives the anti-corruption war, under the leadership of Mr. Bawa, a dangerously political coloration.”

Ologun said, “We are beginning to see anti-democratic elements within the Democratic process, who are daily drawing us back in the fight against corruption. This is a coalition of different civil society organizations against corruption. For a while now, we have observed the EFCC Chairman flagrantly disobeying court orders. And we believe that he who comes to equity must come with clean hands. If you are at the helm of affairs of an anti-graft body and you find it difficult to obey court rulings, such a person is a lawbreaker. You cannot be in charge of taming corruption in the county and you yourself would be a culprit for disobeying the court order.”