“Ibori Was Arrested In Kwara State Gov Lodge Abuja, While Enjoying The Company Of Bosom Friend Saraki Based On Investigations By Magu” Raging Resurrected History As Acting EFCC Boss Is Fired After Senate Refused To Confirm Him

As reports Ibrahim Magu, the acting chairman of anti corruption agency, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission(EFCC) has been sacked, A piece of history is resurrected and currently making the round.

Digs by societynowng.com reveal the ”history” was dredged against the background of two major incidents.

The refusal of the Senate to confirm the appointment of acting EFCC boss, Ibrahim Magu amidst dissenting voices from some members.

And the fact that Magu’s removal come’s after ”closed door” interractions between President

Muhammed Buhari and Senate President Bukola.

Interestingly the ”history” dredged up by Simon Kolawole, the master journalist plying his trade with national publication, Thisday foretold the fate of Magu.

The raging piece of history is produced as sourced

”Season Two started in 2006 — or 2007 if you will. Dr. Bukola Saraki, then governor of Kwara state, and Ibori, his pal, would play a key role in the election of Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua as the president of Nigeria. Ibori reportedly claimed to have spent N50 billion on the campaign. Yar’Adua’s campaign team was filled with Ibori’s men. Indeed, Mr. David Edevbie, who would later serve as Yar’Adua’s principal private secretary, was Ibori’s commissioner for finance in Delta state. All was set for the capture of Yar’Adua and the recording of Season Two, which I call ‘The Avengers’. Their first port of call was to destroy the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Why? EFCC, under Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, was a potent instrument in the hands of Obasanjo in the anti-graft crusade. The war was unquestionably selective and vindictive — but there were no trumped-up charges. The allegations were concrete. With a certain Mr. Ibrahim Magu leading key investigations into politically exposed persons, there was a mountain of evidence against leading political actors in Yar’Adua’s government. The only workable option was to weaken the EFCC. They did it by hook and crook. Mr. Michael Aondoakaa, Yar’Adua’s attorney-general, started out by seeking to take prosecutorial powers away from the EFCC. He did not succeed.

While we were at it, EFCC started proceedings against former governors who no longer enjoyed immunity. Ibori was arrested at the Kwara state governor’s lodge in Abuja — while enjoying the company of Saraki, his bosom friend who is today the Senate President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. They had to move fast. Ribadu, who had been re-appointed EFCC chairman by Obasanjo shortly before his presidential tenure ended in 2007, was asked to go back to the senate for another confirmation screening — in the hope that he would not be confirmed (did you just fast-forward to Magu’s fate in 2016?), in the hope that his menace would end quickly.

Along the line, Yar’Adua remembered that Ribadu was promoted to the rank of AIG without having gone to the mandatory National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS). Ribadu was asked to go to Kuru immediately. He was eventually demoted from AIG to DCP, humiliated and dismissed — with Ibori publicly boasting “we are in charge”. Ibori, meanwhile, argued in court that if he stole Delta money, he should be tried in Delta. In 2009, a federal high court was quickly created and built in Asaba to try him, and he was cleared by Justice Idowu Awokulehin as the EFCC, now under Mrs. Farida Waziri (appointed to replace Ribadu, with the help of Aondoakaa), started a new era.

Season Three, I call it ‘The Journey’, started in 2010 when the government of President Goodluck Jonathan re-opened the case and Ibori, in an attempt to escape another trial, ran to Dubai — into the waiting hands of Interpol — from where he ended up in the UK and went on trial for money laundering. He quickly pleaded “guilty” to the same charges he pleaded “not guilty” to in Nigeria, perhaps knowing that the British judicial system was more difficult to fool around with. We now seem set for ‘The Return’, the Season Four of the Ibori franchise. With Magu, his investigator, still at EFCC, Ibori’s file may be dusted up. I will, thus, be shocked if senate eventually confirms Magu.”