EXCLUSIVE: PSC defies ‘damning’ Salami Panel report, considers Magu for promotion

Ibrahim Magu, former acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), is being considered for promotion to the rank of assistant inspector-general (AIG) by the Police Service Commission (PSC), TheCable understands.

Presidency is said to be worried about the “defiance” of PSC which may create the impression that Magu is being rewarded despite the damning report by a presidential panel on him.

Magu, who was promoted to commissioner of police in 2018, had been recommended for removal as EFCC boss by the Justice Ayo Salami panel, which also asked that he be prosecuted over allegations of abuse of office.

The panel had specifically recommended that Magu should be removed “for failing to properly account for N431,000,000.00 security votes/information fund released to the office of the Executive Chairman of EFCC between November 2015 and May 2020”.

He was also accused of causing “disappearance of evidence, stoppage and suppression of cases under investigation and prosecution, and omitting to arrest suspects” in cases involving a former deputy senate president and a former MD of Pipelines and Product Marketing Company (PPMC).

Magu was further accused of supressing high profile cases involving four former governors, one of whom is currently a senator.

The panel recommended that Magu should be referred to the inspector-general of police for “necessary disciplinary action”.

However, since the panel submitted the report in November 2020, only a few of the recommendations have been implemented.

A new chairman, Abdulrasheed Bawa, was appointed in February 2021 while several police officers were recalled to the headquarters.

Magu, who has been in limbo since his probe by the panel, is believed to be in the good books of the PSC chairman, Musiliu Smith, a former inspector-general of police from Lagos state.

Some senior police officers are reportedly grumbling over the failure to discipline Magu, who has always denied the allegations against him.

TheCable had revealed in August 2020 that the panel, in its interim report, recommended Magu’s sack and prosecution over allegations of corruption and abuse of office.

Abubakar Malami, the attorney-general of the federation, had petitioned the president, levelling allegations of corruption and insubordination against Magu.

Magu was arrested on July 7, 2020, detained and suspended as the acting chairman of the anti-graft agency.