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Curiouser and curiouser – The Nation Nigeria

Segun Ayobolu

It is incredible that it was after his release from a ten-day detention during which he appeared before the Justice Ayo Isa Salami panel investigating grave charges of corruption against him a number of times that the suspended Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr Ibrahim Magu, wrote the panel requesting a formal copy of the allegations he is expected to respond to. Magu’s lawyer, Mr Wahab Shittu, requested from the panel a copy of the memo to President Muhammadu Buhari by the Attorney General of the Federation, Mr. Abubakar Malami, containing 22 allegations of criminal misconduct against his client, a copy of the report of the Presidential Committee on Audit of Recovered Assets (PCARP), which again severely indicted Magu and had been generously quoted in several sensational media reports during the anti-graft Czar’s detention as well as individual petitions submitted to the panel against Magu.

One finds it rather curious that Magu could be hauled before a panel headed by a jurist of Justice Salami’s caliber without being presented a formal copy of the allegations against him to enable his counsel prepare an informed and robust defense. It sounds more like trial by ambush.

Now that he has regained his liberty, it is in the interest of the investigative panel’s credibility to ensure that Magu is accorded fair hearing in accordance with due process and the rule of law.

Not less curious on further thoughts is the necessity for the Justice Salami panel in the first place. From media reports on the matter, Magu has already been thoroughly investigated and emphatically and unambiguously indicted. The allegations against him are specific, detailed and obviously a product of thorough and extensive inquiry. Apart from the Presidential Committee on Audit of Recovered Assets (PCARA), which delivered a damning report on the purported misdeeds of Magu, reference has also been made to another report by the National Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), which also gave vivid details of Magu’s alleged criminal foreign exchange transactions.

It must have been in the light of these, that the AGF wrote his memo to the President again making very specific and damaging allegations against Magu and declaring him unfit to head the anti-graft agency. That PMB acted on the AGF’s memo without considering it necessary to refer the indicting memo to Magu for his response indicates that the president was convinced that a watertight case had been made against him. Why then the rigmarole of the Justice Salami panel again? Why not simply charge him to court immediately to answer for his purported crimes given the gravity of the allegations against him as indeed the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has rightly and understandably demanded?

Of course, some of the allegations flying in the media space appear to have collapsed even before Magu formally enters a defense. For instance, some media outfits which relied on the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) to report that respected human rights lawyer, Mr Femi Falana (SAN), was paid N28 million by a Kaduna based Bureau de Change on behalf of Magu, have withdrawn the report as untrue and apologized to the senior lawyer. The General Overseer of Divine Hand of God Prophetic Ministries, Prophet Emmanuel Omale, alleged to have bought a property in Dubai worth N573 million on behalf of Magu has not only vehemently denied the report but has addressed a pre-litigation letter to NAN. Magu’s lawyer has challenged his accusers to provide details of any such property and proof of ownership by his client.

A close examination of a number of the allegations against Magu even by a layman shows them as somewhat curious and even comical. For instance, the AGF alleged that the suspended EFCC boss disclosed a total Naira recovery of N504 billion but actually lodged N543 billion in the Recovery Account with the CBN leading to a discrepancy of about N39 billion. Now, if the allegation was that the EFCC had lodged N504 billion as recovered funds while actually N543 billion was recovered, it would be understandable. But from this allegation, the amount lodged with the CBN as recovered funds exceeds the amount announced as recovered. Now, once recovered funds is paid into the Treasury Single Account (TSA) with the CBN, can the EFCC have access to such funds anymore? So what then really is the point of this allegation?

Again, let us take the allegation that Magu criminally diverted the interest on N550 billion recovered loot placed in a deposit account. But as Magu’s lawyer has argued, all recovered funds are lodged with the Treasury Single Account domiciled with the CBN and it is elementary knowledge that such funds do not generate interest! Even then, those who have made such emphatic and specific allegations against Magu must have done a thorough investigation and must certainly be prepared to prove their case against him in court. Bringing him immediately before the courts especially after such grievous allegations have been levied against him, will therefore be the best way to demonstrate the seriousness of the administration’s anti corruption war as well as the fact that there are no sacred cows in its prosecution.

The flurry of obviously deliberately leaked sensational media reports about Magu’s serial financial infractions over the last week is not just an indictment of the suspended Acting EFCC Chairman, it also raises serious questions about the effectiveness and efficacy of the PMB administration’s anti-corruption war over the last five years. For, Magu could not have singlehandedly committed the alleged crimes he is accused of without collaborators not just within the EFCC but across the financial system including commercial banks, the CBN and the Federal Ministry of Finance. This does not indicate that PMB’s anti-graft war has made even the slightest dent on the edifice of corruption in the country thus far. If little has been achieved in this regard in five years, despite PMB’s own unblemished personal integrity, is there much hope that anything substantial can be accomplished in the remainder of his tenure?

It is unsettling that even as the nation was beholding the drama of the Malami-Magu saga, allegations and counter allegations of flagrant corruption involving mind boggling sums of money were flying between the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio, on one hand and a former Acting Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Dr Ggbene Joi Nunieh, on the other. In the same vein, the National Assembly committees on the NDDC and members of the commission’s Interim Management Committee (IMC) have been hurling mud at each other over alleged large scale financial fraud on the part of the latter.

In the course of the AGF’s onslaught against Magu, there was a twist as documents were released in the media indicating that the former had last year granted approval to some operators in the oil industry to sell five sea vessels holding crude oil and diesel forfeited to the federal government. While some have questioned his legal authority to do so, the AGF has stoutly defended the legality of his action insisting it was in line with presidential directives and in accordance with due process. The curiosity is, however, that one of the firms authorized by the AGF to auction the properties, Momoh-Jay Nigeria Ltd, and it’s Managing Director, Mr Jerome Itepu, are reportedly currently standing trial at the Delta State High Court, Asaba, for allegedly stealing about 12,000 metric tones of crude oil loaded in a vessel, MT Akuada, a.k.a MT Kua, valued at N384 million in 2009.

Now, what was the response of the AGF’s office to this serious allegation? According to his spokesman, “The issue of interest to the public, of which a serious journalist need to support the general public to know is whether Omoh-Jay being a duly registered company can be denied opportunity to participate in the auction bidding process on a purported account that the company is standing trial (not convicted) by a competent court of the land…Every person who is charged with a criminal offense shall be presumed to be innocent until proved guilty. Assuming without conceding that Omo-jay is being tried for criminal offense, if indeed any, does that take the constitutional presumption of innocence in their eligibility to apply and be considered for auction?”

Well, perhaps because I am not a legal mind, I don’t get it. This is my response to the AGF’s contention here as a layman. Let us suppose that the AGF has a young daughter who requires private lessons in Mathematics. Let us suppose further that a most able male Maths teacher is introduced to him for the assignment the only snag being that the young man is on trial for alleged rape but not yet convicted. Will the AGF entrust his daughter to his care on the presumption that he is innocent until proclaimed guilty by the court? It may yet get curiouser still.

Source: thenationonlineng.net