Babatunde Fowler quizzed by EFCC
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has reportedly arrested a former Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, Babatunde Fowler. No reason was given by the anti-crime agency but an allegation of mismanagement of N5 billion has been hanging on his head.
However, some EFCC sources said he was not arrested but invited to the Lagos office of EFCC to give clarifications to some allegations. “He was only invited for routine questioning,” a source said.
Fowler was chairman of FIRS on the recommendation of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, after the former was instrumental to growing the tax revenue of Lagos State where he once superintend over the state’s revenue service.
He was said to have ran into storm while at FIRS where he was suspected to have soiled his fingers with not-so-clean transactions and handling of money collected, leading to his term not being renewed. He had a lingering friction with former Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, Abba Kyari, and members of the cabal.
He was queried for shortfall in revenue collection to which he replied, adducing reasons bordering on shortfall in crude oil revenue. His answers to the many questions raised in the query were said to have angered Mr.Kyari. Mr. Fowler’s tenure was not eventually renewed largely due to what a Presidency source described as “unsatisfactory.”
Fowler has been a long-standing ally of Tinubu.
