Ibrahim Magu, boss of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Tuesday, July 13, 2016, dodged questions on the recently exposed $1.5 million Dubai properties owned by Nigeria’s army chief, Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai.
Magu was at Rockview Classic Hotel, in Abuja, venue of a one-day workshop on ‘Anti-corruption, ethics of the legal profession and justice sector. At the end of the event, journalists approached him with questions.
Magu had prepared himself to take questions from journalists but as soon as the first question bordering on Buratai’s corrupt Dubai acquisition was asked, he hastily turned back and entered into his waiting car.
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While speaking earlier at the event, Magu had threatened to mobilise his the commission against lawyers who “aided corruption”, which is most likely a code word for lawyers who defend people accused of corruption by the anti-graft agency. He said the commission would not spare “anybody, including senior advocates of Nigeria”.
This came few days after some prominent legal practitioners, including a senior advocate of Nigeria, Mr. Femi Falana, had urged President Buhari to sack Buratai, if the army chief failed to voluntarily resign following the revelation that he purchased the corrupt Dubai properties.
“I don’t want to mention some of our strategies, but we will start going after people now. If you are involved in laundering money, we will go after you it doesn’t matter who you are because the law does not respect anybody – whether you are the EFCC chairman, whether you are SAN,” Ibrahim Magu.
Magu added that “sooner or later we [EFCC] will look at how people assist people to buy properties with stolen funds, how people assist others to escape justice and we will go after them”.
It is unclear whether this is an attempt to silence the call for General Buratai’s removal.
