The usually sleepy Asokoro neighbourhood in Abuja was jolted Tuesday morning on November 21, after a team of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and their Nigeria Police counterparts attempted to arrest a former Director General of the State Security Services (SSS), Mr. Ita Ekpeyong.
The EFCC team also tried to arrest the embattled former Director General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Mr. Ayo Oke, who incidentally resides within the same street as the DGSS and has been accused by the EFCC of failing to honour its previous invitations.
Ordinarily, operations of an anti-corruption agency like the EFCC should not be subject to scrutiny and criticisms but these have become inevitable under Ibrahim Magu’s leadership of the beleaguered and evidently compromised agency.
For an agency that has recently been enmeshed in internal bickering over revelations by its staff that Magu has nearly ran the commission aground due to his many indiscretions and lack of competence as well as allegations of diversion of 750 million naira approved by the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo for the anti-corruption war, one wonders what satisfaction Magu derives by further plunging the agency into more crisis and unnecessary rivalry with relevant security agencies.
In his latest media grandstanding, Magu dubiously roped-in the arrest of the former DGSS with the indicted former DG NIA, in an futile brinkmanship which betrays his vendetta for a agency that in a rather commendable course of due diligence warned in a letter preceding his screening by the Senate, that “Magu has failed the integrity test and will eventually constitute a liability to the anti-corruption drive of the present administration.”
The obvious intention of the failed Asokoro double swoop was that having released a statement claiming the former DG NIA had failed to honour its invitation, the EFCC would then succeed in portraying Mr. Ekpeyong as also turning down invitations to its office. And so, while Magu goes to press to tout his anti-corruption war, in this instance, the target was clearly to get back at an agency which he despises for doing its own duty.
Magu’s EFCC had earlier in October, gone to media with baseless allegations that the DSS was shielding some of its officers from investigation. An allegation that received serious backlash among Nigerians who wondered if the EFCC had a case at all.
Beyond Magu’s misplaced vendetta however, is his dangerous tendency for selective and compromised prosecution of the anti-corruption war. The agency sold the allegation that Mr. Ekpeyong is wanted for his part in the disbursement of arms funds during the last administration, which raises the curiosity over why none of the Chiefs of Army Staff who served about the same time with Mr. Ekpeyong are being investigated let alone arrested.
For the records, the bulk of arms purchases approved by the last administration for which Magu is now witch-hunting perceived enemies, were done by the Army which was rightly the lead-agency in the war against insurgency and terrorism. During this time, Lt. Gen. Azubuike Ihejirika was Chief of Army Staff between September 2010 to January 2014 and was succeeded by Major Gen. Kenneth Minimah, who served till July 2015. Till date, none of these men have been arrested.
Heads of security agencies usually press for inter-agency synergy for its obvious advantages. But with an agency head obsessed with media showmanship, such professionally edifying principles as synergy and liaison are alien and contrary to his vindictive convictions. Unsurprisingly, as with his many media trials and very few court convictions of accused corrupt persons, the EFCC and by extension, the anti-corruption campaign takes a huge hit from his incompetence.
Even the DSS would by now be shocked by the actuality of its own forewarning that Magu “will eventually constitute a liability to the anti-corruption drive of the present administration.”
Bukar Mshelia
A Public Affairs Analyst, writes in from Kaduna
