Sunday Independent in separate interviews with legal practitioners and human rights activists advised that the Justice Ayo Salami panel should recommend the immediate retrieval of such assets from the buyers while investigation and due diligent prosecution of all indicted persons should be carried out.
While some of them said that anybody who bought the property innocently should retain what he bought without liability, but that the fraudulent officer should go to jail, some are of the opinion that any person and cronies, as culprits being in possession of looted cum stolen property, should be made to face the wrath of the law.
However, they called for an open and fair hearing for Magu and anyone that might be investigated or put on trial, as they said that if the allegations were investigated and found to be true, it would be a great setback to President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption crusade.
Femi Aborishade, a human rights lawyer, said though the EFCC under Magu embarked on media trial of its suspects and that Nigerians should not assume that Magu was guilty of the allegations, they remained allegations and he should be presumed innocent until proven guilty in the court of law.
He said that the allegations against Magu should not end at the level of the presidential investigation panel, but that he should be charged to court along with others suspected to have helped themselves illegally, if found culpable.
He added that the loot should not only be retrieved but all those found guilty should be brought to justice by serving jail terms as the courts may deem fit under the law.
Goddy Uwazurike, a lawyer, stated that re-looting and looting are both financial crimes and that it is a gross breach of duty and confidence for an officer entrusted with the responsibility to betray such.
“There is a higher punishment for a person entrusted with responsibility than an ordinary looter. Any innocent purchaser for value retains the property he bought. The fraudulent officer will go to jail but the innocent purchaser has no liability. It is for the government to investigate and confirm the innocence of a buyer,” he said.
Uwazurike also said that any bank that colludes with officers to steal money or manipulate banking records has committed multiple offences and so should bear the liability.
Onyeisi Chiemeke, a Lagos-based lawyer, said the principle should be that no public fund should be looted.
“Something is wrong when we begin to fear that that which has been recovered may be taken again. But fundamentally, we need to query a system that makes it possible for public office holders to steal public fund,” he said.
Adeola Soetan, National Coordinator, Democracy Vanguard, in his own view said the suspicion that the recovered loots are being re-looted has been a sing-song over the years.
He said that there must be open and fair hearing for Magu and anyone that will be investigated or put on trial can defend themselves properly.
“I have no problem that the President, whose mantra is anti-corruption war is trying to look into the books of the EFCC or any other anti-graft agency. But, we must insist on open and fair hearing for Magu and anyone that will be investigated or put on trial so that they can defend themselves properly.
“All allegations are still speculative until when the panel submits its report and Magu is put on trial if need be and if found guilty that will be a great setback to the remnant of Buhari’s anti-corruption crusade. It will be very embarrassing for anticorruption czar to be caught stealing recovered loot.
He said that Nigerians will lose total confidence in EFCC, ICPC and government’s anti-corruption war.
“It is a common knowledge that no mega fraud is successful without the connivance of the banks because most Nigerian banks are owned by big public thieves and the banks are purposely created for racketeering, this is the reason while the economy is going down, banks are declaring huge profit in billions. Our banks are part of the channels of looting by the corrupt bourgeois class; the institution is not developmental at all.
“Government can retrieve any recovered assets sold to anyone or organisation illegally that breaches the rules. It may take some legal trip and time but it is possible if the government has the courage.
Wale Ogunade, another legal practitioner, said that though they are still investigating the matter but that there is no smoke without fire.
He said there is no transparency, that what Magu ought to have done is to announce and make public the details and addresses of the seized properties and put it on the website of the EFCC for Nigerians to see, but since that was not done, it gives room for suspicion.
“These recovered assets that have been re-looted obviously is a shameful thing for it to be re-looted. Government can retrieve any assets that has been illegally acquired or taken or gotten by fraud.
“The proper thing to do is to be publicised and it would be done through a public auction where everybody have assess and not that it would be locked and some people will have access to the detriment of others, so to me government has all the right to retrieve those assets that were found out to be sold to cronies, friends and relatives of Magu or any of his persons that are so involved,” he said.
Oladotun Hassan, Chairman Eti-Osa Bar Forum, stated that it is not new as previous chair of the anti-graft agency had had similar penchant records of grabbing and re-looting.
“Magu’s probe presumably is premeditated attrition to settling political scores amongst the highest echelons and gladiators eggheads of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), but to Nigerians and global community it expository reality show on how we are fundamentally unprepared for succinct democracy in Nigeria.
“Inevitably, there ought to be due diligent, prudent, fidelity and untainted disclosure in accordance with the EFCC Act of proper records of account of all material evidences and recovered assets and properties, particularly the discovered missing 322 out of the 836 recovered properties in March, 2018 and other alleged corruptive tendencies.
“Unfortunately, most of the forfeited re-looted properties and proceeds of corruption were found in custody of top EFCC officials, cronies and associates of the Acting Chairman and other recommended beneficiaries, wherein records show they were clandestinely sold at a giveaway price.”
Oladotun stated that the probe panel needed to treat such accomplice’s persons and cronies as culprits being in possession of looted cum stolen property if found culpable then the full wrath of the law should take its course.
“It is unacceptable fact and improper to re-loot recovered assets, it consequently amounts to deceit, lack of transparency, unlawful possession of recovered properties, nondisclosure and concealment of facts, lack prudential accountability, distortion and mutilation of official records.
Speaking further, he said the conspiracy theory is unprecedented and highly expository to see how banks are now brokers and conduits of corruption in Nigeria, in gross violation of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Establishment Act.
“It is illegal and unprofessional conduct for those identified financial institutions to utilize or interfere with recovered financial assets in their custody in an unjustified manner.
“Highly regretful and improper to see how banks are also alleged to be conniving with EFCC to divert, steal looted funds by allowing the commission to place monies in interest yielding accounts, is rather compromising, fraudulent and criminal, such financial house needed to be vicariously liable for the acts of their staffs, while such staff be punish for such criminal infractions,” Oladotun added.
Suraju Olanrewaju, Chairman, Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA Resource Centre), said he is convinced that a huge percentage of the allegations are not true and they are just deliberately concocted to give Magu a bad name.
“I was shocked seeing media report saying Magu did not declare the interest on the recovered N500 billion. He did not just recover N500 billion, he recovered N543 billion and even in the letter from the Office of the Attorney General, it saves the money in the CBN account.
“Every Nigerian knows that the Federal Government operates Treasury Single Account (TSA), which is domicile with the Central Bank of Nigeria. Every Nigerian should by now know that you can’t keep Federal Government money again in the commercial bank, even the one that was recently allowed under the COVID-19 arrangement, the Federal Government had to issue a statement specifying those banks where you can domicile some of the contributions.
“There is a recovery account in the central bank so if there is any money that you will find in the commercial bank that is collected with the recovery process, it would be those money that were actually traced with those accounts that the EFCC would have applied for to the bank and to the court to have interim forfeiture or where they placed ‘post no debit’ instruction that can be in the bank pending the conclusion of the investigations or the prosecution process and the moment that is forfeited, there is no way you can disgorge interest from the principal.
“The whole amount is moved to the treasury account by that bank that is a concern, so there is actually no way somebody could have done an arrangement with that.
“There is the allegation that over 300 properties cannot be accounted for where are they, list them recovered from who? So, it is not just sufficient enough to say he recovered over 500 properties and they say they could not account for over 300 where are they? Some of the allegations are fabrications.”
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