Acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ibrahim Magu speaks on the unprecedented anti graft campaign being waged by his agency and how corrupt elements are fighting back

Ibrahim Magu, EFCC boss

I wouldn’t go beyond the reactions of Mr. President. I think it was most appropriate and you cannot shy away from being called corrupt, because corruption has gone deep. The president’s reaction is that ‘whatever it is, give me back what has been taken from us’.

Of course, London is the capital of money laundering. Most of the stolen monies are hidden there either by way of property, banks or physical cash. I have an advantage of leading the EFCC now, because what you need most when you’re fighting corruption is the political will of the leadership. You will agree with me that Mr. President is not pretending about fighting corruption. You can see that it is in his blood. So we are so lucky to have somebody who is committed, who supports us, who does not interfere with what we are doing; and I mean that. It is good. You can see how we are moving. It is unprecedented.

Halliburton scandal

The Halliburton scandal investigation is on. There were some arrangements that some very senior lawyers were involved. We are investigating every day. Even the last time I was in the US, it was part of the agenda. In the UK, we discussed with the NCA [National Crimes Agency]. So, we are very much on the case.

Witch-hunting and politically motivated prosecution

It’s not true at all, because we don’t chase innocent people.We conduct background investigation before we invite suspects. We specialise in financial crimes investigation, which means that we follow the money; to the extent of knowing how you utilised the money; how you distributed the money. We do our homework,before we invite anybody.Sometimes we maybe investigating you for a year, or six months, and you wouldn’t even know. There is no sacred cow as far as this fight against corruption is concerned. We will go after anybody who has committed an offence. We will collect the money back, so that it will go back to the treasury, so it can be used for the original purposes. I don’t care whether you’re black or white or you come from Party A or Party B; the moment it can be established that you have stolen from the public treasury, we will go after you.Even right here[in EFCC], if we discover that you’re corrupt, we will kick you out. And we are already doing that. So we don’t go after innocent people. We are going after the thieves of state resources.

Prolonged detention of suspects

Nobody that has met the bail conditions is kept in the cell.We don’t do that. Honestly, it doesn’t happen here. If we have any reason to keep somebody beyond the time allowed by law, we go to the court and obtain a remand warrant. But sometimes,when you arrest the suspect,on disclosure,you will get additional information from them.For instance, somebody who has stolen state funds to the tune of about $88 million you do not expect me to let him go like that. It is when you keep them that some of them will oblige and return the money; and it is very important for us to get the money back.

High profile cases

We have recorded about 143 convictions so far ,and it is going up and no one single [anti-graft] institution has ever done that.

But I agree that with the high profile cases, we have not been able to secure convictions; but with the Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015, things are working very well and sooner or later, you will begin to see convictions of politically exposed persons.

Repatriation of stolen funds

Of course, we are working with all the other law enforcement agencies-the Federal Bureau of Investigation, NCA, the Swiss Police, and the Italians as well, and many other people.There are requirements you must enter–the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, MLAT, with the other countries.We are following the money and we will get them back very soon. But it has to be done within the law.There are procedures, and they are really tedious. But there is an improvement, because they’re willing to issue warrant, they are willing to restrain any account we pointed out.They are willing to also release the property we have traced to their countries. We are also helping them at this end.We are working with the United ArabEmirates,and many countries are now ready to key in, because they realize that fighting corruption is a very serious issue.

Plea bargain

I know plea bargain has a lot of issues, but if it is handled properly, it is not bad. If you happen to cooperate and you don’t give us too much problem and we sit down and look at what has been recovered from you, we can agree to entertain plea bargain.

Banks complicit in money laundering allegations

We had a discussion with the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and I insisted that this so-called private banking should be stopped. It is illegal. It is wrong.We are not only going after the personnel of the banks, we are also going after the banks. What happens is that when a staff of the bank is involved in such activities, what the bank does is to take the person out of the system through dismissal. But now, we are going to go after the banks and the personnel used to perpetrate the fraud. It takes two to tango. In fact, very soon you will see us going after the Managing Directors of the banks.We don’t care what happens, because the right thing has to be done; because they have given a lot of room for the money laundering activities to thrive. They were used to hide all the stolen money.

Corruption in public service

We have done a lot of work in the area of ghost workers. There is a lot of stealing going on. We have been able to block all these leakages. And we are still working with the Ministry of Finance and the office of the Attorney General of the Federation. The aim is to block the leakages first. We are prosecuting some civil servants, and I think people will learn a lesson.

Price of fighting corruption

Corruption is fighting back, and some of the fighting back is coming from government officials. It’s very serious; but I’ve fought corruption,and corruption fought back. I’m still fighting corruption. If it is my portion to lead the corruption fight,particularly under President Muhammadu Buhari, I’m fulfilled. We are ready to fight to the end. Somebody has to do it and I’m happy we are making tremendous progress.

New ideas in fighting corruption

There is no one way of fighting corruption. Of course, basic strategies are there,where you have preliminary investigations. But when it comes to real fight, just like two fighting, the fact that you fought me today, and you are able to beat me does not necessarily mean that you will win tomorrow. So there is no one strategy. And it’s not in my place to disclose my strategy.

Government support

Excellent. But it is not only the support of the government, we need the support of everybody. We have launched a media awareness campaign,because some people don’t even believe that corruption is wrong.

*Culled from EFCC Alert