* We have always questioned his integrity, says PDP
The Presidency has wielded the big stick against the acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr. Ibrahim Magu, and suspended him from office.
His suspension came barely 24 hours after he appeared -first on Monday – before a Presidential panel raised to investigate corruption allegations leveled against him by the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Ibrahim Abubakar (SAN). The panel is headed by a retired president of the Court of Appeal, Justice Ayo Salami.
After his interrogation on Monday, Magu was detained at the FCID in Area 10, Abuja. The session continued on Tuesday morning, without any inkling however that he would be eased out of office.
By afternoon of Tuesday, the Presidency ordered his suspension from office, “pending a final decision” on his matter.
Earlier, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had asked Magu to step aside and allow an unhindered probe into allegations of malfeasance leveled against him.
The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Kola Ologbodiyan, said in Abuja on Monday that Magu’s invitation by a panel on allegations as serious as those in the public domain should be of interest to all.
The statement read: “The Peoples Democratic Party has asked the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration to show the genuineness of its war against corruption by allowing the unhindered investigation of the acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.”
The party said Nigerians are already aware that Magu has been pulled in for questioning, adding that “the fact that he has to be accompanied by an attorney shows that the said ‘invitation’, is beyond the routine.”
The party held that the development around the EFCC acting Chairman as well as “the desperate attempt” by the Commission to cover his investigation, only raise more integrity questions regarding Magu’s activities in the EFCC.
Ologbodiyan said: “Only last month, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, released a memo in which he indicted Magu of alleged diversion of recovered funds and fraudulent sale of assets seized by the EFCC.