Magu Does Not Mean Well For Buhari’s Anti-Graft War – AGF Malami

The manner in which Ibrahim Magu has “manipulated and misused intelligence” using his position as Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) will not augur well for the ongoing ant-graft war in the country.

This was according to Abubakar Malami, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, who said this in a statement on Wednesday.

Malami accused the Magu-led EFCC of frustrating Federal Government’s effort to “have an independent Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU).”

The WHISTLER recalls that the Financial Intelligence Units (Egmont Group) had earlier dealt President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption fight a big blow after it suspended the NFIU from its  global financial intelligence gathering body.

According to the AGF, the Acting EFCC Chairman and his team are relentlessly working to see that the country’s suspension by the Egmont Group is not lifted.

The statement reads:

“The EFCC is now in a state of paranoia, as it dreads the effort of the government to have an independent NFIU, which it has stood against stoically since 2006.

“As it presently stands, the NFIU staff are all deployed by the EFCC to serve in the interest of whoever is its current Chairman. This has to stop if it must conform to the new thinking and global best practice. Nigeria cannot be an island of its own. It cannot fight corruption in isolation.

“The threat of expulsion from the Egmont Group calls for a thorough review of the NFIU and the manner in which the EFCC leadership has manipulated and misused intelligence to the detriment of the fight against corruption and financial crime in Nigeria.

“To achieve the desired goal, NFIU needs to stand alone as an agency with full complements of power to recruit its staff and an annual budgetary allocation guaranteed for its operations.

“Its independence must be ascertained in the new law to set up Nigerian Financial Intelligence Agency (NFIA) to enable it carry out its mandate, which shall include responsibilities for receiving, requesting, analysing and disseminating financial intelligence reports on money laundering, terrorist financing and other relevant information to law enforcement, security and intelligence agencies, and other relevant authorities.”