Ibrahim Magu
SUSPENDED acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ibrahim Magu has vowed to respond to all attacks against him from the people bothering on abuse of office and diversion of recovered funds.
President Muhammadu Buhari suspended Magu over allegations made by the Attorney General of the Federation/Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami SAN.
In a statement through his lawyer, Wahab Shittu, the embattled anti-graft boss said he will henceforth respond to every allegation against him now ”point to point” adding that the alleged misappropriation of funds recovered for the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) against him is unfounded and baseless.
He said the allegations against him border on matters that were never brought before the panel set up by President Muhammadu Buhari to probe the activities of the EFCC under him. He also said the allegations were prejudicial to the proceedings of the panel.
”Take notice that, our client can no longer fold his hands in the face of these sustained malicious attacks to prejudge him in the public space. Our client will henceforth, point by point reply to all false allegations orchestrated against him in the public space on a daily basis as well as present his comprehensive defense for the world to see,” he said through his lawyer.
”This is without prejudice to the willingness of our client to defend himself in the ongoing proceedings at the Presidential Investigation Panel.
“The truth of the matter is that well over N329 billion recovered by EFCC under our client’s watch was remitted directly into NNPC dedicated accounts via Remita under a special arrangement endorsed by NNPC, EFCC and the affected NNPC’s indebted marketers.
“By virtue of the said special arrangement, NNPC had requested formally the EFCC to recover the said amount from the affected NNPC’s marketers who were expected to pay such funds directly to NNPC while NNPC, in turn, confirmed receipt of such payments to EFCC.
“Therefore, EFCC never took custody of any of the recovered funds and so, the question of misappropriation of such funds by EFCC or our client could not have arisen as falsely published,” he said.