Magu’s trial and anti-corruption’s incoherent typeface

Rough edges, reverses, contradictions and interagency fisticuffs define the character of the anti-graft war, the flagship programme of the Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) Regime. Noble and topical no doubt, urgently required in a nation suffocating with monumental sleaze, the reformist programme plays out more like an adventure, a voyage without a compass. Arrested and detained on Monday by ambush, like a criminal fleeing justice, the head and chief image maker of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ibrahim Magu, was bundled before a presidential probe panel to defend himself against ‘weighty allegations’, running into 22, of wrongdoing and astonishing improprieties.

Yet, this is the same Magu whose ‘favoured boy’ status enabled him to stay in office contrary to convention, if not law as acting chairman for five consecutive years without a confirmation by the Senate. Curiously, one of the buttressing documents warranting his trial before the Justice Ayo Salami panel is a report generated by the Department of State Services in 2017 seeking to void the confirmation of a presidential nominee. What would have been lost if, instead of the ongoing drama and incivility, Buhari had simply summoned Magu, thanked him for his service, demanded his resignation and let the justice institutions take over from then on. If Magu’s appointment and retention beyond a four-year term without confirmation is awkward, to say the least, the manner of what maybe his exit is sensational and runs against the grain. This is more so because it leaves the EFCC at least for now, in the limbo, and by extension the anticorruption programme. This is not to say that Magu cannot be tried for alleged infractions, for as government has been quick to explain or justify, the antigraft czar is not above the law. What is being pointed out is that there ought to have been a tidier manner for bringing him to book or cautioning him.

The goal of a proper anti-corruption reform should be to build an objective system which works irrespective of whom the alleged culprit may be. The way and manner this has been handled so far tends to justify the suspicion voiced by a member of the Presidential Advisory Committee against Corruption, Prof. Femi Odekunle, that Magu is a victim of a power play. Of course, even if that were the case, it still does not cancel the imperative of ensuring that the nation gets to the bottom of the allegations. For example, one of the allegations concerns the under-declaration of the amount recovered from looters with the difference allegedly, being in the neighbourhood of N35bn. Others include the alleged sales of seized assets to cronies, associates as well as delay in acting on court orders to unfreeze monies as stipulated by the court. He is also said to be living far above his income. However the current probe pans out, it is clear that only a much diminished Magu could return to the EFCC in the unlikely event that he is vindicated. Gone is his moral authority and the sense of élan and modest rectitude with which he carried on. For sure, the anti-corruption crusade if we can call it that, has reached a treacherous crossroads where whatever decisions are made henceforth will have important consequences on the future of the policy as well as the apex reform agency.

As several writers have noted, all previous helmsmen of the EFCC have come down the same way, mired in controversies leading to their removal and in some cases disappearance from public view. That trend should have made the Buhari regime not to have bent over backwards to accommodate what now appears to have been Magu’s excesses. It does not say much for the consistency and clarity of the reformist agenda that a report emanating from a government agency indicting Magu but jettisoned at the time has now been dusted up as fresh evidence of his culpability. A logical and required follow-up to the current scenario would be for a reset of the antigraft programme in which the dragnet will be cast beyond Magu to take on board allegations of moral torpor in other agencies of government as house cleansing. In this wise, the expression that is now being bandied around that no one is above scrutiny would both make sense and sound true. To limit the exercise to Magu, would appear selective and smacks of the proverbial long knives which from time to time are applied in the corridors of power to get rid of those who have lost out in intramural conflicts.

Equally important is the need to ensure that the repetitive drama of sacking the EFCC bosses for moral transgressions does not repeat itself. It is either that not enough homework were done before the appointment of these chairmen or the circumstances of the office are such that it is easy for them to become victims of power dementia and lack of safeguards. Some senior lawyers have pointed out for instance that the constitutional requirement for the organisation to be governed by a board has so far been observed in the breach, making it each for the EFCC boss to become a law unto himself. In other words, we want to be sure that the powers accumulated by successive chairmen, are not so wide as to make them vulnerable to delusions of grandeur. There is already an inherent power in the ability of anyone to define saints and sinners and to punish sinners, we must not compound that muscle by not applying required checks and balances including those specifically recommended by the constitution.

In retrospect, it is unfortunate that Magu’s sense of omnipotence may have been deepened by the unusual leeway of allowing him to continue to act as chairman in the face of legislative refusal to confirm his appointment. To have carried that leeway into the fifth year, beyond the four-year tenure granted by the constitution, may have tempted him to see himself as a new centre of power that did not need to account to anyone except the President.

That said, we must be fair to acknowledge that in terms of zeal and industry, Magu may have accomplished more than his predecessors in putting anti-corruption, its contradictions notwithstanding, on the Nigerian political map. He carried on like a true believer in the programme, suggesting that some of his failures might have been due to the lack of clarity of the programme itself rather than from his own personal liabilities. It may be necessary as we consider the future of the EFCC, and the anti-corruption crusade to increase the intellectual capital of the organisation considering the limited intellectual exposure of police officers who end up as top hats of the organisation. There is a difference between taking degrees and cultivating the intellect to a point where one can keep abreast of new ideas, emerging threats and opportunities. We should no longer carry on with the simplistic tendency to reduce moral reformism to catching thieves as the case has been for too long.

Finally, we should employ the opportunity to straighten out the contradictions and incoherence that have so far enfeebled the potential and promise of the anti-corruption agenda.