Why Magu Was Detained - Presidency Opens Up

Femi Adesina

According to Vanguard, Mr. Femi Adesina, Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to the President, has said the presidential panel investigating Ibrahim Magu, the suspended Acting Chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, might have detained him to ensure relevant documents were not tampered with.

Adesina said this on Channels TV programme, ‘Politics Today’, just as Magu’s lawyer, Mr. Tosin Ojaomo, stated on the same programme that if the Justice Ayo Salami panel eventually finds Mr. Magu not culpable, he should be reinstated by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Meanwhile, according to Adesina, although he is not a lawyer to determine if the panel was justified in detaining Magu for 10 days, it may have taken measures to ensure that relevant documents needed in connection with the investigations were not tampered with.

He noted that before Mr. Magu was invited, the panel had sat for weeks over the allegations of corruption and determined that there was the need for the suspended EFCC Acting Chairman to appear before it.

He added that “it is against this backdrop that President Muhammadu Buhari gave the panel the mandate to invite Mr. Magu to answer to the allegations against him.”

Mr. Magu was arrested last week Monday and had been detained by the police until his release on Wednesday.

He had been appearing before the presidential panel investigating allegations of corruption and insubordination levelled against him by Abubakar Malami, Nigeria’s Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Inspector-General of Police, IGP, Mohammed Adamu, had told Magu through his lawyer that the Police was not the one detaining Magu, but the panel investigating allegations against him and that it is the panel that can order his bail.