by Samuel Ogundipe,
Ibrahim Magu, the acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was at a gathering to strategise on the re-election campaign of President Muhammadu Buhari.
The event, which held on Tuesday at Nicon Luxury Hotel in Abuja, was exclusively billed as a consultative forum for politicians of the ruling All Progress Congress. It was put together by the National Committee of Buhari Support Groups, a political action committee loyal to President Buhari.
Mr Magu was sighted at the event wearing his signature black suit, seating amidst APC heavyweights like Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who represented an out-of-town Mr Buhari, and Bola Tinubu, a national leader of the party.
Instructively, Mr Magu was in Lagos hours apart, defending himself and the EFCC as apolitical, the Vanguard reported.
It came three weeks after service chiefs came under public ridicule after being sighted at the formal launch of Mr Buhari’s 2019 campaign at Transport Hilton, Abuja.
The presidency later explained away the awkward affair, saying the military chiefs showed up because they thought the event was to showcase the president’s security achievements — and they hastily departed the venue after realising it was political.
It also came as the police were jailing Deji Adeyanju, one of Nigeria’s most active political activists on social media, for accusing security and law enforcement chiefs of being increasingly and overtly partisan.
He was leading a protest against what he described as partisan conduct of security chiefs ahead of 2019 elections when he was arrested with two others on November 28.
Boma Williams and Daniel Abobama, the two activists arrested with him, have since been released, but Mr Adeyanju has remained at a federal prison in Keffi, after being arraigned on duplicated charges of defamation brought by the police and the Nigerian Army.
What optics?
It was not immediately clear what Mr Magu, as the head of an agency that should be above partisan pandering, was doing at the event. The EFCC chief did not return calls and text messages seeking clarification from PREMIUM TIMES on Monday afternoon.
A spokesperson for the anti-graft agency strongly denied that Mr Magu was present at the meeting, saying it was a political meeting that had nothing to do with the anti-graft chief.
“He left for Lagos around 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday after going to Nicon Luxury to see a relative who was ill,” EFCC spokesperson Tony Orilade told PREMIUM TIMES by telephone Wednesday afternoon. “The only thing he went to Nicon Luxury for was to see his relative, and he immediately left for Lagos where he met with some newspaper editors.”
It was true that he later left for Lagos, but that appears to be after attending the Abuja event. Some individuals who attended the political gathering told PREMIUM TIMES they sighted Mr Magu at the event.
But the strongest evidence that the EFCC boss was at the venue was a Channels TV recording of the gathering. The broadcast station showed Mr Magu seated among other dignitaries at its News @ 10 programme on Tuesday night.
The EFCC and other security and law enforcement agencies, although under absolute control and supervision of the president, are expected to function as an independent institution and their heads expected to abstain from situations that could portray them as partisan before Nigerians.
But this basic expectations, which could speak to the professionalism of security and law enforcement appointees if adhered, is being regularly discarded in favour of open partisanship.
Tuesday’s gathering with APC politicians was not the first time Mr Magu would publicly demonstrate his loyalty to Mr Buhari. The EFCC chief was recently criticised on social media when he appeared on a television show on May 15 wearing a lapel of Mr Buhari’s re-reelection campaign. He brushed off the complaints at the time, failing to specifically react to critics’ concerns that his conduct was too partisan for a law enforcement chief.
The EFCC has faced relentless allegations of bias under Mr Magu, with the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party saying the agency was only targeting its members, especially those who served under President Goodluck Jonathan.
Mr Magu’s agency has failed to investigate allegations of corruption against Abdullahi Ganduje, the Kano State governor who was recently caught on video seemingly accepting huge bribes from public works contractors.
Loyalty as a currency
Mr Magu was appointed by President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015, but he has remained in acting capacity with any hope that he would be confirmed all but lost. The Nigerian Senate rejected his nomination twice in 2016 and 2017, and Mr Buhari has not been able to secure another hearing for his confirmation ever since.
In a ruling that emphasised the principles of separation of powers in January, a federal court affirmed the Senate’s decision to decline Mr Magu’s nomination, but Mr Buhari kept him in office nonetheless.
Mr Buhari has however continued to retain Mr Magu as acting head of the EFCC.
What Mr Magu did “shows that the EFCC has become an appendage of the ruling party,” said Abuja-based lawyer, Yomi Ogunsanya. “It is wrong to openly portray an agency as partial.
“But it could be because the president appointed him and kept him in office despite being rejected by the Senate repeatedly. But he should remember that he is being paid by the taxpayers, not the president, and should stop degrading an anti-corruption institution with his partisanship.”
