New acting EFCC chairman Abdulkarim Chukkol assumes office following the suspension of Bawa

ABDULKARIM Chukkol has been named as the new acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission  (EFCC) following the indefinite suspension of Abdulrasheed Bawa by President Bola Tinubu.

Earlier this week, President Tinubu suspended Mr Bawa indefinitely  so investigations into the numerous allegations against him could be conducted.  There has been several allegations against Bawa since he assumed office as EFCC chair including one by former Zamfara State governor Bello Matawalle, that he demanded a $2m as a bribe from him.

He is also accused of spending  $300m of public funds on himself and his family while observing the lesser hajj in Saudi Arabia. With such weighty allegations against him, President Tinubu had no choice than to suspend Mr Bawa and Mr Chukkol, the most senior director in the commission has been named as his replacement.

Until now, Mr Chukkol, a trained investigator and detective, was the EFCC's director of operations. He earned a degree from the University of Maiduguri, Borno State, in 2000 and in 2006, he took a criminal justice education course at the Canadian Police College, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

From there, he was trained on cybersecurity and spectrum monitoring at the United States Telecommunications Training Institute, Washington DC in 2010. In 2011, Mr Chukkol obtained a postgraduate diploma in criminal justice education at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia.

In the same year, he attended a training at the FBI National Academy, Quantico, Virginia, in the US. Also, as the EFCC's director of operations, he worked with many international security agencies like the National Crime Agency in the United Kingdom, Queensland Police in Australia and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the US.

An EFCC spokesman said: “A pioneer staff of the commission and an illustrious member of the EFCC cadet course One, Mr Chukkol is a consummate and vastly experienced investigator with speciality in cybercrime and money laundering."

In 2021, Mr Bawa took over the helms of affairs at the EFCC under similar circumstances when his predecessor, Ibrahim Magu, was suspended from office by then President Muhammadu Buhari, over allegations of corruption. Mr Bawa became the second major appointee of former President Buhari to be suspended by President Tinubu, after the Central Bank of Nigeria governor Godwin Emefiele was suspended too.

Last month, the EFCC revealed that Governor Matawalle was being investigated over a N70bn fraud case. According to the former governor, who was recently defeated in February's gubernatorial elections by Governor Dauda Dare, Mr Bawa asked him for a bribe to stop the investigation.