Magu Pleaded With Me For Confirmation, Saraki Tells CJ

Former Senate President Bukola Saraki says the acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Mr. Ibrahim Magu, had pleaded with him  to ensure that he was confirmed by the Senate when he visited him in 2016.

The former Senate President  said that he told  Magu that the Department of State Services had written a letter to the National Assembly accusing the EFCC boss of corruption and being unfit to hold the office and thus should not be confirmed.

He noted that the Senate rejection of Magu was not personal

Saraki  explained this in a letter addressed to the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Justice Adamu Abdu-Kafarati.

The former Senate President  letter sent to Justice Adamu Abdu-Kafarati on May, 21 was written in response to a previous letter written by the EFCC to the chief judge.

In the letter  Saraki accused Justice Taiwo Taiwo of being biased against it.

Bukola Saraki had filed a fundamental human rights suit before Justice Taiwo who in turn granted an ex parte order restraining the commission and five other agencies of the Federal Government from continuing its investigations of certain corruption allegations against him.

However, in a protest letter signed by Magu, the EFCC requested the re-assignment of the two ex-governors’ cases and all other ones involving it in the judge’s docket to another judge of the court.

In his own letter, however, Saraki said the EFCC was after him because Magu believed he had a hand in his confirmation.

Part of the letter read , “Your Lordship, Mr. Magu after his nomination, came to see me pleading that I should do my best to help him during the screening process. During that meeting, I made it clear that I had no objection to his nomination and revealed to him, in confidence that he needed to go and clear himself with the DSS because the report on him was unfavourable.

“In fact, I bent backwards to let him read the content of the indicting security report submitted on him.

Also, I decided to delay the screening to give him ample time to get the DSS to change the report. As it eventually turned out, he was unable to get the adverse DSS report reversed.”

Bukola Saraki said it was in a bid to ensure transparency that the Senate allowed Magu’s screening to be aired live on television.

Saraki, who was governor of Kwara State from 2003 to 2011, urged the CJ to ignore the EFCC’s request even as he added that all the allegations levelled against him were not different from the charges filed before the Code of Conduct Tribunal which were quashed by the Supreme Court.

He asked the CJ to therefore ignore the EFCC’s petition