Nigeria’s Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami has forwarded a petition to President Muhammadu Buhari recommending the sack of Ibrahim Magu as the Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Malami in his petition against Magu as the EFCC boss to the President, listed 22 weighty allegations against him to justify the recommendation of his sack from office.
Naija News understands three high profile candidates were also included in the AGF’s petition to the president as a replacement for Magu.
The push by Malami is also understood to have been brought to the attention of Magu by his supporters within the presidency, prompting the EFCC boss to start setting up his own defense mechanisms as well.
Malami in his petition to the President, listed several grounds “raging from diversion of recovered loot to insubordination and misconduct” as reported by THISDAY.
However, Magu’s supporters within the Presidency are of the opinion that ”removing Magu at this time when he has given muscle to Buhari’s anti-corruption fight would be a mistake.”
“It is painful that the EFCC boss is facing certain powerful forces who have decided to remove him in spite of his remarkable achievements,” sources stated.
Despite the weighty allegations against Magu to President Buhari, some sources believe the EFCC boss will come out victorious but the president may be inclined “to set up a probe panel that will look into the veracity of the allegations and make necessary recommendations.”
One of the sources told select journalists that “I can authoritatively tell you that though Magu has survived previous plots to remove him, the AGF’s legal opinion remains the deadliest plot to get Magu out of the EFCC as AGF’s letter to the president contained 22 weighty allegations that require Buhari’s decision on whether or not to send Magu’s name to the Senate for confirmation or replace him….. This is because the office of the AGF is the supervising ministry of the EFCC and so his legal opinion cannot be treated with levity.
“For example, Malami alleged accounting gaps or discrepancies of figures concerning the recovered assets, claiming that Magu was not transparent enough in the management of recovered assets…”
A Magu supporter added that:” It will interest you to note that Malami accused the EFCC boss of disclosing a total naira recovery of N504 billion but lodged N543 billion in the Recovery Account with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). Incidentally, this exceeded the disclosed figures by N39 billion.”
According to the supporter of the EFCC boss, what should be a point of commendation is now being used against Magu.
Others said: “Malami also accused Magu of blatant display of arrogance and insubordination to him as supervising minister of the EFCC.”
Malami claimed that most of the recovered assets by the EFCC were allegedly sold by Magu without the knowledge of anyone.
Meanwhile, Naija News recalls the move by the presidency to confirm Magu as the substantive EFCC boss was rebuffed by the eighth senate, forcing him to remain in acting capacity as the presidency also insisted a new candidate won’t be presented for the post.
The Senate cited a damning security report from the Department of State Services (DSS) as its reason for refusing to confirm Magu as a substantive EFCC boss.
source https://www.naijanews.com/2020/06/19/agf-malami-lists-22-sins-against-magu-petitions-president-buhari-to-sack-him-as-efcc-chairman/
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