TheCable

President Muhammadu Buhari has received the report of the presidential panel probing Ibrahim Magu, suspended acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

The president received the report at the council chamber of the presidential villa in Abuja on Friday.

The panel headed by Ayo Salami, former president of the court of appeal, was set up to probe the EFCC from May 2015 to May 2020, when Magu was in charge of the agency.

Magu, a commissioner of police, was whisked before the panel on July 6 by a combined team of Department of State Services (DSS) and officers from the Force Criminal Investigation Department (FCID) of the police in Abuja.

He was suspended from office four days after his arrest while Mohammed Umar, former director of operations at the EFCC, was appointed in acting capacity.

The travails of Magu, a commissioner of police, followed a memo by Abubakar Malami, attorney-general of the federation, who accused him of “grave malfeasance”.

He was alleged to have mishandled the recovered loot and sold seized assets to his associates.

Magu was also alleged to have purchased a property in Dubai, United Arab Emirates using a pastor as a conduit.

He has since denied all the allegations which he described as “nonsense”, once saying: “what I am going through is a case of dog eats dog”.

In one of the interim reports it submitted in August, the panel had recommended that Magu should be sacked and prosecuted over allegations of corruption and abuse of office.

The panel also recommended the appointment of a new chairman for the anti-graft agency “without further delay”.

The former acting chairman of EFCC has accused the panel of not giving him fair hearing.

Buhari had appointed Magu in 2015 but the senate declined to confirm his appointment, citing a DSS report which indicted him of corruption — although Magu, who is currently being investigated by the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) over alleged false assets declaration, denied any wrongdoing.