By Meshack Idehen
The ongoing attempt by Attorney General, Abubakar Malami and friends to distract Nigerians from their 418 million dollars criminal acts, and use the narratives of Assistant Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Magu (Rtd) to overshadow their crimes will not work.
It is that straightforward.
Malami has been caught red handed. Even the usually near docile and see, hear no evil Nigerian Governors forum has risen up to challenge the brazen criminality of Abubakar Malami and company.
It is that serious.
However, those events, unfolding and salacious as they are may not be my focus in this piece.
Here, I will attempt to show how a man who served Nigeria with all his power and might is being maligned, mauled in the courts of public opinion over nothing, and lied against repeatedly, just because of some power play in the presidency of which he (Magu) has no interests.
For starters, it’s important that we appreciate that Ibrahim Magu bowed out from the Nigeria Police Force as an Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG), was the first anti-corruption fighter to have headed the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
He is now being brutally maligned and fiercely mauled apparently for doing nothing wrong against the law of the land, other than stopping some in government with quick hands from robbing the nation blind and blue.
It was the same fate that befell Nuhu Ribadu, another fine officer that faced the same fate of persecution and humiliation. Nuhu Ribadu was the pioneer chairman of the anti-sleaze agency founded by the administration of ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo.
However, none of the probe panels set up to interrogate the activities of the duo within and without returned any verdict of guilt on the two gallant anti-corruption combatants. Even the Ayo Salami Panel that sat on camera, no one can say it indicted Magu, who was summarily eased out of the common.
It’s pertinent to say that had Magu been indicted by the Salami panel, his last promotion to the position of AIG would not have been possible.
In the same vein, had he been indicted, after his forced exit from the EFCC, the Police Force would not have hesitated a second before dismissing him from the institution.
Now, he is retired with all full compliments, and those whose hands are soiled, and who are scared of Magu are not done, sponsoring all manner of lies and fake stories against the former anti-corruption czar.
You can only suppress the truth for a while but can’t eclipse it in the long run.
Magu’s case is particularly striking in the sense that he faced the fiercest time of his life fighting corruption.
From the day he was appointed to the day he was crudely humiliated out of office, he suffered one of the worst character demolitions from the establishment that should have shielded him from wanton and reckless interference.
What was his crime? For standing stoically against the principalities of corruption holding the country by its jugular? He came at a time when the anti-corruption fight was at its lowest ebb, and in no time, the fight garnered momentum as those with stained garments scampered and holed themselves in the embrace of the law. He was the feared masquerader as the culprits of corruption wished there wasn’t a Magu to head the EFCC at the time he came in.
It was obvious from the get-go that he was in for a serious opposition when the 8th Senate vowed never to confirm his appointment as the substantive chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. It was an unfazed Magu who stood his ground and refused to budge from the deliberate official assault.
His crime again was fighting the monster called corruption.
As EFCC’s Chairman, Magu was apolitical and fought corruption with all the seriousness of a fierce fighter. He went after top government officials. He had just one goal: to deflate the balloon of corruption and rid the system of the monster called graft.
He was unmistakable in his pursuit and there was no stopping even when they refused to confirm his status as chair of the anti-graft agency.
He waged the deadliest war against corruption in private and official places.
Unfortunately, for a country where the forces of oppression are much more than the forces of progress, Magu was and still paying for his uncompromising stance when those who swore to uphold the instrument of the law decided to choke the life out of him.
He has become the target of sponsored editorials that decimated his character, and hired commentators mounted the consoles as they hatched phantom and fictitious smear campaigns against his person.
When they are not at that, they resorted to crude force as the man’s life becomes threatened and targeted
It is the price for fighting in defence of the fatherland
Nonetheless, rational minds continue to ask what was Magu’s offence is?
Late Professor Femi Odekunle told the world that Magu was being hunted and haunted by enemies of the state.
There is nothing more to add.
