Olusegun Adeniyi, chairman of THISDAY editorial board, has
revealed how Ibrahim Magu, suspended chairman of the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission (EFCC), “harassed” two allies of President Muhammadu Buhari
without the president’s knowledge.
Adeniyi said Magu blocked a move by Theophilus Danjuma,
former defence minister, to purchase an aircraft, few weeks after raiding the
residence of Abdulsalami Abubakar, former head of state.
In weekly THISDAY column on Thursday, the former spokesman
to the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, said Buhari learnt about Magu’a
actions only after they had been carried out.
Magu is being probed by a presidential panel over
allegations of corruption. Abubakar Malami, minister of justice and
attorney-general of the federation, accused him of diverting recovered loot.
He wrote: “Former Defence Minister, Lt General Theophilus
Yakubu Danjuma (rtd) was recently at the villa to see President Muhammadu
Buhari. It was a visit borne out of rage. A billionaire oil tycoon, Danjuma had
paid for the purchase of an aircraft. His cheque bounced! The order to withhold
payment, he was told by his banker, came from Magu!
“From what I gathered, it took some time before the
president could convince Danjuma that he knew nothing about what was clearly
power mongering by a reckless public official.
“A few weeks before that incident, the Minna residence of
former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar was raided by EFCC
operatives who “turned the house upside down”. The president also got to know
only after the deed had been done.
“While neither Danjuma nor Abdulsalami is above the law,
power should never be used to harass and ridicule people, whether high or low.”
He also said Buhari has been petitioned on many occasions
over the manner with which the embattled EFCC boss was auctioning recovered
assets.
“A man who would take on the high and mighty in a society
like ours, including members of the president’s immediate family, must also
live above suspicion,” he added.
“In the past five years, Magu has at different times made
claims about the hundreds of billions of Naira recovered from ‘treasury
looters’. But subsequent auctions for recovered assets did not follow due
process, resulting in choice properties being handed out to suspected cronies.
“Since Abuja is a city where residents know the dirty
secrets of people in power (including who is sleeping with whose spouse), the
president was being inundated with petitions that Magu is not above board in
his dealings.”
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