The Justice Ayo Salami Judicial Commission of Inquiry into alleged malfeasances against embattled and suspended Acting Chairman of the Economic And Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr. Ibrahim Magu, is poised to submit its report, likely this week; but most likely in a few hours time on Wednesday.
A source within the panel, while reacting to a damning press release by Magu’s lawyer, Mr. Wahab Shittu, said that a newspaper report and the counsel’s public statement were intended to pre-empt and undermine the report due for submission on Wednesday.
He debunked speculations that plans were afoot to recommend that the head of the EFCC should no longer come from the Nigeria Police, and that the panel would recommend that policemen should no longer be operatives of the EFCC.
His words, “there was no such recommendation….The Panel comprises experienced public servants who understand, not only the law establishing EFCC but also the requirement for staffing of such an agency.”
He also hinted that the anger and bitterness being spewed against the panel stemmed from the serious lapses observed in the running of the EFCC which would come to light if the report was made public.
He added that a particular lawyer whose ambition of riding on the back of the Magu-led EFCC to become a Senior Advocate of Nigeria was scuttled by a memo to the “appropriate authority” is bristling in the background.
“We also discovered a conflict of interest on the part of someone being paid from public coffers, but representing someone in a private capacity. More details will come out soon,” he said.
He declined to give details of the panel’s report other than point out that assets were re-looted after being seized; while proper records of seized assets were not kept, leading to the panel depending on facility managers to get lists of some seized assets.
It was gathered that in some cases, some assets were lost because no efforts were made to update or conclude investigations on assets that had Court orders for interim forfeiture.
Everyday.ng could not verify if this was deliberately done so some people could recover seized assets or due to negligence or incompetence. The source simply said, “wait for the report”.
It was learnt that claims of recovery of monies may have been bogus as some of the recoveries were based on amounts in suspects accounts, rather than actual amounts they were been investigated for.
Recall that the commission of inquiry was set up following a letter to President Muhammadu Buhari by the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami SAN, making some allegations against Magu.
The commission was required to inquire into-
(1) The Extent of Mis-management and Diversion of recovered Assets and Funds:
(a) Investigate, verify and review the recommendations of the Presidential Committee on Audit of Recovered Assets as it relates to the EFCC, with a view to ascertaining the complicity or otherwise of the Ag. Chairman, Ibrahim Magu in the mismanagement of the assets recovered by the Commission;
(b) Identify avenues through which the recovered assets are dissipated and seized, recovered, forfeited (Interim and Final) assets are valued, managed, disposed or mismanaged with a view to ascertain compliance or otherwise with extant laws, regulations, processes and procedure;
(c) Review the existing procedures on the management of the seized, recovered and forfeited assets (interim and final) and proffer Standard Operational Procedures for the management of seized, recovered and forfeited assets;
(d) To determine whether moveable or immoveable assets including funds or cash recovered during his tenure, whether locally in Nigeria or abroad are being kept safely in a manner as to preserve their original value;
(i) Identify the location of all moveable or immoveable assets, funds or cash that are under interim or final forfeiture based on administrative or orders of the courts; and
(ii) Identify the Bank accounts to which recovered funds or cash were paid into and whether generated interest from the recovered funds or cash were properly accounted for.
(e) Whether all the assets could be properly accounted for by the Ag. Chairman and take measures to –
(i) Confirm, if any, of the assets has been diverted to the benefit of the Ag. Chairman, his family, relation, friends or favoured staff; and
(ii) Recover any of such diverted assets, funds or cash, if any and recommend, if the funds should be returned back to the EFCC or appropriate government agency, entities or individuals.
(2) Investigation into the Abuse of Office and non-compliance with official directives to investigate and report on the existence or otherwise of dereliction of duty and abuse of processes and procedure against the Ag. Chairman as it relates to his conduct on the following matters:
(i) Investigation of P&ID and determine what happened when the case was first referred to him in 2016 and high profile local and international cases inclusive of the case of Dieziani Alison Madueke and others;
(ii) Complaints by the UK National Crime Agency (NCA) in London;
(iii) Complaints of non-compliance with Court Order;
(iv) Complaints of non-compliance with procurement and financial management laws; and
(v) Non-compliance with Presidential and Ministerial directives.
(3) Audit the Account of EFCC as a Legal Entity in line with Public Service Rules, EFCC Act and other Extant laws. Audit the Assets and Finances of the EFCC as a legal entity from 2015 – 2020, with a view to ascertaining compliance or otherwise with procurement procedures of the EFCC in line with the provisions of the Procurement Act.
(4) Investigation into Personal Enrichment with the Assets Recovered
(a) To investigate and report on corruption and money laundering allegations involving the Ag. Chairman and Bureau De Change operators, as well as some of his associates; as per the intelligence reports and petitions.
(b) Work with any other persons, organization or corporate entity to achieve the objectives of the Terms of Reference and make any other observation and recommendations as may be necessary”.