The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission(EFCC) and human rights attorney Chidi Odinkalu have clashed over the arrest of cross-dresser Idris Okuneye, better known as Bobrisky.

EFCC operatives, on Wednesday, arrested Bobrisky at Pinnock Estate and on Friday charged him to court for allegedly mutilating the naira, with claims that the crossdresser “sprayed” wads of the Nigerian currency at a movie premiere and other parties, a move they said contravened the law regarding the handling of the naira.

But Mr Odinkalu described the swift manner at which the EFCC was able to nab and prosecute Bobrisky in just three days a clear instance of “abuse of power.”

Abba Bichi, son of the director-general of the State Security Service (SSS), Yusuf Bichi, was captured in a video showering wads of the new naira notes on actress and Senator Ned Nwoko’s fifth wife, Regina Daniels. The authorities took no action in arresting the senator’s wife or even Mr Bichi’s son, fanning speculations that the EFCC was selective in its enforcement of the law.

The former chair of the Nigeria Human Rights Commission (NHRC) did not mince words in labelling the anti-corruption campaigners as “idle” officials who weaponised their badge to hunt down citizens “they don’t like.”

Unflattered by the lawyer’s opinion, the EFCC had a scathing retort to Mr Odinkalu’s statement, which the operatives described as “reckless” and “rascally.”

The anti-graft commission threatened to take legal actions against any “uncouth commentaries” as it advised the “senior lawyer to ventilate his rascally opinions more responsibly in future situations.”

Unfazed by the threat, Mr Odinkalu insisted that it was worrisome that the EFCC’s approach reeked of misplaced priorities, using its employees as a “tool of persecution” and favouring irrelevant matters over those that significantly impact citizens’ lives.

“That the EFCC is so devoid of a sense of priorities that they consider themselves useful only as a tool for persecution of people on the margins of society or that they are so idle they consider my opinion deserving of their entire Friday (or both) should bother all responsible citizens.”

The senior lawyer said it was “tragically unfortunate that they (operatives) consider it their statutory duty at the EFCC to be fiddling while the country burns. If that is not idle abuse of power, I don’t know what is.”