Magu not using money discovery to justify stay at EFCC – CSO

Partner for Electoral Reform (PER), a Civil Society Organisation (CSO), says Mr Ibrahim Magu, is not using strings of money discoveries as bait to remain at Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Chairman of the organisation, Mr Ezenwa Nwagwu, said on Tuesday in Abuja that Magu was just doing his job to curb corruption contrary to the insinuations.

Nwagwu said that rather than castigating Magu, currently acting chairman of the commission, Nigerians should commend the organisation for the fight against corruption.

He said that Magu did not appoint himself, and so, had a responsibility to do what he was doing.

He added that any institution saddled with the responsibility of tracking financial crimes, weather headed by Magu or not, should be able to do what Magu was doing.

“Current efforts of the EFCC are not to justify anything. The fact of the matter is that the past administration, at the risk of being immodest, plundered the country.
“The consequence of that plunder is what we face today in terms of worsening economic conditions for majority of the citizens.
“So I think that rather than begin to distract him, it is to begin to say look, people should voluntarily submit what they have stolen or stashed away.
“You don’t need a Magu to come after you; if you know you have taken what does not belong to you why don’t you bring it out ?’’ he said.

Nwagwu said that if not for the kind of restrictions on a lot of things, some of these monies would have found their way out of the country as before.

According to him, it is because of these restrictions that looters of the nation now stash money in houses and different places.

He said that it was also a credit to the present administration that the measures had been able to hold out in such a way that stolen money is no longer leaving the country.

Nwagwu stated that the resources stashed away in foreign banks in US and Switzerland by corrupt Nigerians could transform the country if returned.

He advised Nigerians that looted the treasury to return such funds before the law caught up with them.

He recalled that the country had been recording recovery of stolen funds, but that it appeared different now because there was somebody now who was interested in using search light to chase looted money.

Nwagwu, however, said that cases of stealing and recovery of money “is something that diminishes us as a people internationally and gives us a bad image globally’’.

He debunked the claim by some Nigerians that some international organizations were withdrawing grants to Nigeria due to the size of looted money by government officials being discovered.

According to him, those Nigerians are saying that the international organisations claim that Nigeria has money but does not know how to spend it.

“The fact that Nigeria has money is not new, but the problem is lack of good leadership.’’