I want to use my column this Sunday to address the sickening level of hypocrisy demonstrated by the Muhammadu Buhari administration and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission under the leadership of its acting Chairman, Ibrahim Magu.

Hopefully, the electoral theft carried out by President Buhari and his co-conspirators will be reversed by the Supreme Court when it treats the petition brought by the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.

However, before then, Nigerians would be well advised to prepare themselves for more of the same because it is quite first that the Buhari administration has no intention of changing its tune.

They wasted the last four years blaming everyone but themselves for the series of catastrophes that they passed off for governance and they are about to do the same for the foreseeable future.

Both President Buhari and his vice, Pastor Yemi Osinbajo have set the tone, which has been followed by their subordinates.

On Thursday, March 28, 2019, Premium Times ran with the headline ‘Osinbajo Blames Past Governments for Nigeria’s Lack of Progress’. If this is the best we will get after four years, then imagine how their so-called ‘Next Level’ will be?

And then Ibrahim Magu took blaming to an absurd level by accusing the immediate past regime, of which I was a part of, of looting 1.3 trillion Naira between 2011 and 2015 and declaring that the administration under whom he is serving is on a cleanup mission.

This is just ridiculous and I will disprove it via facts.

It is a lie that 1.3 trillion was looted out of Nigeria. That amount is equivalent to $8 billion when you factor in the pre-2015 value of the Naira to the dollar.

Who looted those funds? Mr. Magu should name names instead of naming figures.

The only time that anything near that amount was stolen from Nigeria was during the kleptocracy of the self-promoted General Sani Abacha.

When I read law in England, my university’s case study for FSA fraud was General Abacha, who looted at least $5 billion. Yet President Muhammadu Buhari famously said ‘Abacha did not steal’.

Nigerians seem to have forgotten that the Abacha family was allowed to keep about $1.2 billion out of the amount that their bloodthirsty buffoon of a father looted from Nigeria.

In fact, a stadium is named after that common thief in Kano!

Abacha’s widow even once boasted that she brought President Buhari into politics and his son, Mohammed Abacha, who I personally interviewed when he was at Kirikiri Maximum Security prison, continues to maintain that the money traced to his family was earned legitimately.

Even today, Abacha loot is still being discovered in sundry places all over the world. Just seven months ago, Switzerland repatriated $320 million worth of Abacha loot, and this is the idiot that President Buhari said did not steal?

What has Ibrahim Magu done to recover the money that is still being held by the Abacha family? What has he done to stem the grand corruption that is ongoing all around President Muhammadu Buhari?

A month after clear evidence of bullion vans ferrying cash into Asiwaju Tinubu’s house in violation of the 2011 Money Laundering Act making it illegal for individuals to make cash payments exceeding N5,000,000, the EFCC has not said or done anything.

Tinubu Even had the audacity to boast that, yes, the bullion vans ferried money and it is no one’s business. This happened 48 hours to an election. If I or any other opposition figure has done this, we would be in jail by now. Why is Tinubu sitting pretty?

A renowned entertainer, Charly Boy admitted to receiving a 9 figure payment from the spokesman to the Buhari campaign, Festus Keyamo. Has the EFCC investigated this? Where does Festus (Stephanie Otobo) Keyamo have N100,000,000 to throw about carelessly?

Till today Ibrahim Magu’s EFCC never investigated the $25 billion NNPC contract awarded without due process. To put this in perspective, that money can pay 1 million Nigerians the proposed new minimum wage of N30,000 for 4 years. To whom was it paid?

Two years after conclusion of investigation, the Buhari administration and the EFCC have still not told us who owns the Ikoyi Apartment Billions. If that money were traceable to Goodluck Jonathan or PDP, the whole world would have heard by now.

Magu said he cannot investigate or prosecute Gov Umar Ganduje because he has immunity, but the same Magu’s EFCC charged Akwa-Ibom Governor, Udom Emmanuel, in the NBA President’s bribery case. No wonder Chibuike Amaechi said APC members are ‘God fearing.

When the Senate tried to prove how Maina, the biggest thief in Nigeria’s civil service history, was reinstated and double promoted, it was Buhari’s Minister of Justice who ran to court to secure an injunction to stop the investigation. Magu didn’t see that?

The truth is that the EFCC under Ibrahim Magu is the armed wing of the APC. No wonder Ibrahim Magu wore a Buhari re-election lapel pin. No wonder his EFCC almost collected a ‘donation’ from Governor Umar Ganduje until a public alarm was raised.

Ibrahim Magu declared Orji Uzor Kalu wanted one week. The very next week the same Orji Kalu was beside Buhari at an APC rally in Abakaliki. Magu has shame whatsoever. Of all the EFCC, you are the most useless and hypocritical

What has happened to Senator Akpabio’s case? When he was PDP, the EFCC harassed him left, right and centre. Soon as he joined APC you forgot his case. The acting EFCC Chairman should understand that his name is Magu, not Mugu. Can he stop acting like a Mugu?

To show how hypocritical Ibrahim Magu’s EFCC is, they declared Orji Uzor Kalu wanted. The wanted Orji Uzor Kalu was shown dancing with Buhari, was appointed by Aisha Buhari and now wants to be Deputy Senate President. Only under Magu the hypocrite.

The fact remains that Ibrahim Magu is incompetent and both mentally and intellectually unsuited for the job of EFCC Chairman. Cast your mind to the way he fumbled at simple questions during his Senate confirmation hearing. Unlike Nuhu Ribadu, he does not have the character to stand up to his boss.

Under him, Nigeria has made its worse retrogression in the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index. Whereas under Jonathan and the PDP, Nigeria made her best ever improvement on Transparency International’s CPI, moving 8 places forward from 144 to 136 in 2014, but under President Buhari and the All Progressives Congress, Nigeria has made her worst ever retrogression, moving backwards 12 places from 136 to 148.

It was under Magu, that the Egmont Group and the Financial Action Task Force suspended Nigeria for lack of autonomy at the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit because Magu’s EFCC kept on unprofessionally using the financial intelligence they were fed to blackmail political opponents of the Buhari government.

I challenge Ibrahim Magu to list his achievements. The only tangible thing I can give him credit for is building the overpriced new headquarters of the EFCC at an astonishing N24 billion ($70 million). To put this in perspective, this is more than it cost to build the offices of England’s version of the EFCC who have a larger staff and mandate than the EFCC.

It is just that President Buhari runs a nepotistic government. If not, how would a man with such low mentality as Ibrahim Magu ever rise to the top of the EFCC when Nigeria has policemen of such sterling character and courage as CP Mohammed Wakil, the Kano State Commissioner of Police?

•Sourced from a THISDAY report

Update news