Lawyers who have visited the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on behalf of their clients always narrate the same experience which is typical of a Nigerian Police Station.
The front desk officers would keep you waiting endlessly until someone shows up to stall the bail process. Was this deliberate or an attempt to make the stake higher?
Those who have dealt with Magu say he could just, by the wave of a hand, keep somebody in detention until he gets tired of that person.
They also say he shows no professional courtesy to lawyers, and has no regard for court orders. He was a man overtaken by the power of his office. “When I went into EFCC cell, I saw how he kept people there for months without letting them see their lawyers,” Lagos based lawyer and human rights campaigner, Monday Onyeakachi Ubani said.
Ubani was himself a victim of Magu’s self-style anti corruption war. In March 2019, he had convinced a client to return to Nigeria to face her trial. She returned to serial intimidation by operatives of the EFCC. The EFCC would also not accept anybody as surety in order to grant her administrative bail except Ubani.
While on bail, the EFCC under Magu, tried to arrest her again, this time, on a matter that was civil in nature. The woman simply jumped bail to avoid the harassment. As a dutiful lawyer and citizen, Ubani notified Interpol and triggered a red alert on her.
Thinking he had done his duty, he notified the EFCC of the situation. But Magu, in a power intoxicating mood, put Ubani in detention even against a court order. This notoriety with which the EFCC would disobey court orders made a judge of the Federal High Court, Abuja, Justice Binta Nyako, to recently issue a reprimand against the agency, warning that it should stop “relying on orders from above” before complying with court orders.
Ubani also say that even Magu’s lawyers would admit that he has no regard for court orders. Many have argued that Magu’s anticorruption effort plays more to the gallery than in the substance of the fight. Former senator representing Kaduna Central, Shehu Sani, would attest to this claim after an experience he had with the anti-corruption body.
The agency herded him into a cell before conducting an investigation to determine whether he offered to stand as a conduit for the transmission of an alleged bribe between a Kaduna businessman, Alhaji Sani Dauda and some judges. Sani asserted his innocence, challenging the EFCC to prove by means of video, audio or bank documents that he was involved in that allegation.
Although the case is now in court, it took until four weeks before the EFCC could release him. “The EFCC under Magu thinks that everyone is a thief. They treat everyone that way.
That is not how to run an agency of that nature,” Ubani says. The former second vice president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) argued that Magu lacks the intellectual stamina and finesse to run the EFCC, saying a police station was better run than the EFCC.
Ubani asked the National Assembly to amend the EFCC Act which only narrows the appointment of the EFCC chairman to a serving or retired police officer, arguing that the provision has affected the quality of leadership the EFCC has had.
He says from Nuhu Ribadu, to Farida Waziri, and Ibrahim Lamorde to Magu, the EFCC hasn’t enjoyed a leadership that is without controversy. He says it is time to look outside the Nigeria Police system in providing a chairman for the organisation. Magu has now been suspended for the same reasons the Senate had refused him confirmation five years ago.
Was President Muhammadu Buhari just realising that the Senate allegations could be true? Or is it, like some people have alleged, that Magu’s singular offence was that he allegedly looted alone? Or was it also the chief-of-staff, Ibrahim Gambari, who is throwing his weight in ensuring that he gives the government a better reputation? There are more questions than we have answers for.
