President Bola Tinubu on Wednesday night suspended the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, AbdulRasheed Bawa.

The suspension is to allow for a proper investigation into his conduct while in office following some weighty allegations of abuse of office levelled against him by some stakeholders in the anti-corruption fight.


Upon his suspension, Bawa was directed to immediately hand over the affairs of his office to the agency’s Director of Operations, Mohammed Umar Abba, who will oversee the affairs of the office of the EFCC Chairman.

Here are six things to know about the acting EFCC chairman:

1. Mohammed Umar Abba was born on June 22, 1965, in Tudunwada Local Government Area of Kano State.
2. Abba bagged his first degree from Bayero University, Kano. He did his one-year national service at the old Anambra State Police Command and later got enlisted into the Nigeria Police Force. He attended the Nigeria Police Academy, Kaduna State, where he was commissioned in 1992.

3. CP Abba was seconded to the Commission in January 2016 to head the Counterterrorism and General Investigations, CTGI, Section at the Headquarters in Abuja.

4. He was appointed the Director of Operations of the Commission in 2017.

5. In 2019, he was promoted to the rank of Commissioner of Police.

6. On July 9, 2020, Abba stepped in as the Acting Chairman of the Commission, being the most senior operational officer when the former chairman, Ibrahim Magu, was suspended.