By Yemi Oyeyemi, Abuja
More troubles appear to be in offing for the suspended Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC), Mr Ibrahim Magu, following a fresh petition against him on alleged extortion and criminal intimidation.
In the fresh petition by an Abuja based lawyer, Mr Johnmary Jideobi, Magu was alleged to have unlawfully frozen accounts of a company, Damjay Integrated Services Limited with Access bank in 2018 without any court order.
The petitioner among others, claimed that following the refusal of the bank to unfreeze the account, Magu and EFCC were dragged before a High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) where Justice O. C. Agbaza on November 21, 2018 declared Magu’s action as unlawful, illegal and ordered him to immediately unfreeze the said bank account.
In the petition signed by the legal practitioner on behalf of the company and addressed to the Attorney General of the Federation AGF, Magu was alleged to have bluntly refused to comply with the order of the court despite not appealing against the judgment.
Insisting that the EFCC has no power under any Nigerian law to freeze any bank account without an order of court, Jideobi claimed that Magu, as EFCC acting chairman, acted with impunity and trampled on the rule of law.
At the peak of the alleged unlawful act, the lawyer claimed that a group of officers operating in the name, “Magu boys” instead of obeying the court order acted as intermediaries to the company and allegedly demanded N75 million from the account as a condition for lifting the illegal restriction.
The petitioner further revealed that the said “Magu boys”, sent three different bank accounts namely Cikin Gida Nigeria Limited with account number: 1771773211, at Polaris Bank; Black and Black Global Concept Limited with account number: 0259011841 with Gtbank and Amina Kigbu with account number: 2176716071 with Zenith Bank for the payment of the alleged bribe.
Specifically, the petitioner claimed that the alleged Magu boys gave directives that the said N75 million bribe be paid in three tranches of N25 million into the three accounts.
However, following the refusal of the sponsor of the company to dance to the tune, a phantom criminal charge was on June 19, 2020 filed against the company’s sponsor and pending in court.
“It is the aggregation of these ordeals consisting of abuse of investigative powers, extortion, unlawful seizure of a citizens property and flagrant disobedience to order of court that impelled our client to instruct that the instant petition be tabled before you now that Mr President is desirous of sweeping the EFCC clean and restoring sanity”.
The petitioner therefore demanded that the AGF immediately lift the unlawful restriction on the account in compliance with the court order and to also order immediate withdrawal of the alleged phantom charge instituted against the petitioner because it was predicated on malice and vendetta than justice.
The petition dated July 28, 2020 was received in the AGF’s office on July 29, 2020 and copied the Justice Ayo Salami led Presidential panel investigating the recovery of assets by EFCC under Magu and Ibrahim Magu and attached with the High Court judgment.