Realnews recalled that in 2016, the Senate declined to confirm Magu as the chairman of the anti-graft agency, citing a report from the Department of State Service, DSS. The DSS report stated that Magu lives in a residence rented for N40 million at N20 million per annum, among others. However, despite the senate’s rejection of Magu’s appointment over the DSS report, President Buhari allowed him to continue in office.

As the debate over the legality of Magu’s detention rages, lawyers, who have visited the EFCC on behalf of their clients, have always narrated the same experience, which is typical of a Nigerian police station. Those who have dealt with Magu say he could just, by the wave of a hand, keep somebody in detention until he gets tired of that person.

They also say that he shows no professional courtesy to lawyers and has no regard for court orders. He is a man overtaken by the power of his office. “When I went into EFCC cell, I saw how he kept people there for months without letting them see their lawyers,” a Lagos-based lawyer and human rights campaigner, Monday Onyeakachi Ubani, said.

Ubani was himself a victim of Magu’s self-styled anti-corruption war. In March 2019, he had convinced a client to return to Nigeria to face her trial. She returned to serial intimidation by operatives of the EFCC. The EFCC would also not accept anybody as surety in order to grant her administrative bail except Ubani.

While on bail, the EFCC under Magu tried to arrest her again, this time, on a matter that was civil in nature. The woman simply jumped bail to avoid the harassment. As a dutiful lawyer and citizen, Ubani notified Interpol and triggered a red alert on her. Thinking he had done his duty, he notified the EFCC of the situation. But Magu, in a power intoxicating mood, put Ubani in detention even against a court order.

Ubani also said that even Magu’s lawyers would admit that he has no regard for court orders. Many have argued that Magu’s anti-corruption effort plays more to the gallery than in the substance of the fight.

Apart from Ubani, Senator Shehu Sani, a former senator representing Kaduna Central, would attest to this claim after an experience he had with the anti-corruption agency. The agency herded him into a cell before conducting an investigation to determine whether he offered to stand as a conduit for the transmission of an alleged bribe between a Kaduna businessman, Sani Dauda and some judges.

Sani asserted his innocence, challenging the EFCC to prove by means of video, audio, or bank documents that he was involved in that allegation. Although the case is now in court, it took until four weeks before the EFCC could release him.

On his part, Mike Ozekhome, a constitutional lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, has described the travails of Magu as an ‘iroko tree that suddenly diminished to a shrub or an anthill.’ He said Magu was the architect of his travails because aside from his corrupt practices, he was selective in discharging his duties, arresting and detaining opponents of the ruling party, and any decent voice to the government.

The human rights lawyer said, in a statement, that he fought, criticised and challenged Magu in court for his impunity and won and yet he, Magu, did not retrace his steps. “I called for a change of the way and manner the ‘anti-corruption war’ was being selectively and opaquely fought. I wrote a public letter in 2017, to the then Acting President, Prof Yemi Osibanjo, SAN, at a time his boss, President Muhammadu Buhari, was sick on London hospital bed.

“They looted our treasury in collaboration with their cronies, friends, and acolytes. Magu was the new Sheriff in town. I got no reply to my letter to Osinbajo. I wrote a reminder. No dice,” Ozekhome disclosed.

 Likewise, Femi Falana, a human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, said the arrest and suspension of Magu was a moral disaster for the anti-corruption drive of Buhari. Falana, while speaking on ‘Your View,’ a programme on TVC, on Wednesday, July 8, said it was expected that the person prosecuting others for corruption should not be enmeshed in the same crime.

He said the president has the right to order the investigation in the wake of a petition against the anti-graft boss alleging corrupt infractions. “There is no doubt that this is a moral disaster for the anti-corruption crusade of the regime, but we also have to appreciate the fact that the head of the EFCC must be free from corruption. And I believe that Mr. Magu will be given the opportunity to address the allegations. If he is found culpable, the law will take its course, if it is the other way, the law will take its turn,” he said.

Be that as it may, Magu has now been suspended for the same reasons the Senate refused to confirm him five years ago. Nigerians are now asking, is President Buhari just realising that the Senate allegations could be true? Or is it, like some people have alleged that Magu’s singular offence was that he allegedly looted alone? Or was it also Ibrahim Gambari, chief-of-staff to the president, who is throwing his weight in ensuring that he gives the government a better reputation? There are more questions begging for answers.