Nothing Incriminating Was Found In Magu’s Home As He Spent The 4th Night In Detention

The embattled Magu, suspended Acting chairman of the anti-graft agency, EFCC, spent another night in detention, making four consecutive nights.

Mr Magu who was arrested on Monday and has been detained for interrogation since then.

He is undergoing interrogation by a probe panel set up by President Muhammadu Buhari over allegations of corruption and insubordination.

The panel is chaired by a retired appeal court judge, Ayo Salami, also has representatives of the major security agencies, police and the SSS, as members.

The allegations against Mr Magu were made by the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami. Both men have had a running battle since Mr Magu’s appointment in 2015.

The panel has held its daily sitting behind closed doors with no journalist allowed.

Asides from Mr Magu, other senior officials of the agency including its secretary, Olanipekun Olukoyede, are believed to have appeared before the panel.

Unlike the acting Chairman of EFCC, other persons who have appeared before the panel has not been restricted from going home after the appearance.

We however gathered that, Mr Magu is allowed to see his family at the Area 10 police building in Abuja where he is being detained. Our source revealed that, he sleeps at one of its waiting rooms.

He also has access to his lawyers and spends virtually all day answering questions at the panel since Monday.

“He is taken away from the FCID to the villa around 9 a.m. and brought back around 11 p.m. every day,” a security source said.

Mr Magu who remains suspended from office since Tuesday according to multiple sources have Mr Olukoyede and the commission’s director of operations, Mohammed Umar, holding forth as they continue to supervise the agency, with neither of them yet to be formally appointed as acting head of the agency.

However, based on Section 2(3) of the EFCC Act, the most-senior EFCC official next to Mr Magu ”with 15 years experience as a security operative” is expected to take charge as the head of the commission. That would leave Mr Umar, a deputy commissioner of police, as interim head of the agency.

On the same day Mr Magu was suspended, a combined team of riot policemen and operatives of the State Security Services (SSS) searched his house in Karu, Abuja.

According to our very reliable source; “Nothing incriminating was found during the search.”

Many Nigerians including civil society organisations and a member of the presidential advisory committee against corruption, Femi Odekunle, have described Mr Magu’s ordeal as a power play between Magu and Mr Malami.

Recall that, Mr Magu, was appointed as acting chief of the anti-graft agency in 2015 by President Muhammad Buhari and was rejected twice by the 8th Assembly under the leadership of former Senate President Bukola Saraki, after the State Security Service said the nominee lacked the integrity to lead the country’s anti-corruption agency.

The 9th Assembly has however not been sent Mr Magus’s for screening, despite an endorsement by a presidential adviser and chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), Itse Sagay.

“This is not a turn-by-turn thing. It is a thing of merit. You must work for it and achieve it. In our view, the acting chairman deserves everything including his being given a substantive appointment. It is true one man cannot make a forest, but it takes a good man, a man of quality to bring out the best in any organisation, and that is what he represents – an uncompromising person.

“As far as corruption is concerned, no one has the courage in this country to offer him a bribe, because he or she knows the result will be a disaster. We are solidly behind Magu and the EFCC.” Mr Sagay said when he led his team on a solidarity visit to the EFCC boss at the commission’s headquarters, in November 2019.

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