The immediate past President of
Nigerian House of Senate, Senator Bukola Saraki has said the acting Chairman of
the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Mr. Ibrahim Magu, visited him in
2016 and begged him to ensure that he was confirmed by the Senate.
Saraki added that he explained to
Magu that the Department of State Services had written a letter to the upper
chamber of the National Assembly accusing the EFCC boss of corruption and being
unfit to hold the office and thus should not be confirmed.
This was contained in the former
Senate President’s letter addressed to the Chief Judge of the Federal High
Court, Justice Adamu Abdu-Kafarati, which was in response to a previous one
written by the EFCC to the chief judge, the Punch reported.
The EFCC in a letter sent to
Abdu-Kafarati, on May 21, accused Justice Taiwo Taiwo of being biased against
it.
Saraki had filed a fundamental
human rights suit before Justice Taiwo who in turn granted an ex parte order
restraining the commission and five other agencies of the Federal Government
from continuing its investigations of certain corruption allegations against
him.
But, in a protest letter signed
by Magu, the EFCC requested the re-assignment of the two ex-governors’ cases
and all other ones involving it in the judge’s docket to another judge of the
court.
In his own letter, however,
Saraki said the EFCC was after him because Magu believed he had a hand in his
confirmation.
The letter read in part, “Your
Lordship, Mr. Magu after his nomination, came to see me pleading that I should
do my best to help him during the screening process. During that meeting, I
made it clear that I had no objection to his nomination and revealed to him, in
confidence that he needed to go and clear himself with the DSS because the
report on him was unfavourable.
“In fact, I bent backwards to let
him read the content of the indicting security report submitted on him.
Also, I decided to delay the
screening to give him ample time to get the DSS to change the report. As it
eventually turned out, he was unable to get the adverse DSS report reversed.”
Saraki said the acting EFCC boss
had since been hounding him.
He said the DSS actually sent two
reports against Magu and it was the belief of the agency that confirming the
nomination of such a man would be inimical to the war against corruption.
In the letter, Saraki alleged,
“My Lord, Mr. Magu is after me because he feels that as the President of the
8th Senate, I was responsible for the non-confirmation of his appointment,
whereas the reason his appointment was not confirmed is all too familiar: an
agency of the executive, which nominated him, the DSS, sent two reports to the
Senate in which it categorically stated that Magu failed the integrity test,
that his confirmation would shackle the EFCC from effectively tackling
corruption in the country and hampering the anti-corruption drive of the
President Muhammadu Buhari administration.”
He said it was in a bid to ensure
transparency that the Senate allowed Magu’s screening to be aired live on
television.
The former Senate President, who
was governor of Kwara State from 2003 to 2011, urged the CJ to ignore the
EFCC’s request even as he added that all the allegations levelled against him
were not different from the charges filed before the Code of Conduct Tribunal
which were quashed by the Supreme Court.
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