The presidential panel probing Ibrahim Magu, suspended acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has recommended his sack and prosecution for alleged corruption.
According to an online publication, TheCable, in its exclusive report on Friday, August 21, 2020, the panel headed by Justice Ayo Salami, retired president of the Court of Appeal submitted an interim report to President Muhammadu Buhari last Wednesday where the panel also recommended that Magu should be prosecuted over allegations of corruption and abuse of office.
The suspended EFCC boss is also accused of violating the code of conduct law by allegedly failing to declare all his assets when he assumed office in 2015.
It was gathered that the panel also recommended the appointment of a new chairman for the anti-graft agency “without further delay”. President Muhammadu Buhari, in a letter dated July 3, 2020, had directed the panel to submit its “interim reports to me from time to time”.
Since July 6 when Magu was whisked before the Salami panel, Since July 6 when Magu was whisked before the panel by a combined team of Department of State Services, DSS, and officers from the Force Criminal Investigation Department, FCID, of the police in Abuja, former director of operations at the EFCC, Mohammed Umar, has been in charge of the commission in acting capacity Magu was detained at area 10 of the FCT police command for nine days before he was granted bail.
The travails of Magu, a commissioner of police, followed a memo by Abubakar Malami, the attorney-general of the Federation, who accused him of “grave malfeasance”.
He was alleged to have mismanaged the recovered loot and sold seized assets to his associates.
He has since denied all the allegations which he described as “nonsense”, once saying: “what I am going through is a case of dog eats dog”.
The former acting chairman of EFCC has also accused the panel of not giving him fair hearing. His counsel, Wahab Shittu, wrote several letters to the panel, demanding to be served a copy of the charges against him in order to prepare for his defence but he was not obliged by the panel.
President Buhari had appointed him in 2015 but the senate declined to confirm his appointment, citing a DSS report which indicted him of corruption, although Magu denied any wrongdoing.
Source: Vanguard
