Magu: If I die fighting corruption, so be it!

Ibrahim Magu, the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), says he is ready to die fighting corruption in Nigeria.

Magu said he was lucky to be the one, out of more than 170 million Nigerians, with the chance to lead EFCC, meaning if the fight against corruption required going with it, he was ready and determined to.

“There is too much talk about corruption fighting back, of course corruption would fight back, you don’t expect to fight somebody all the time without him fighting back,” Magu said during a visit to Channels Television.

“But we are resolved, we are determined to win this fight and Nigeria has about one hundred and something, over 170 million Nigerians. If I am opportune to drive this thing and in the process I happen to go with it, so be it. I am, we are ready. We are determined to fight this fight to finish.

“There are series of allegations. For instance, the case of NIMASA of N2 billion initially, we took him to court and later on, we realised that he had another matter that he siphoned out of public funds, about N34 billion.”

The EFCC boss said the commission carries out thorough investigations, which often takes months, before proceeding to make invitations or arrest.

“We carry out background investigation, preliminary investigation very thoroughly. We might be on you and you would not know. It may be six months, sometimes 10 months.

“For instance, this NIMASA case, we’ve been on it for more than 10 months, before we began to invite people.”

Magu has been accused of running a selective EFCC, prosecuting members of the opposition party, while men of the ruling party walk free.

In his response to the allegations, Magu said the EFCC works with petitions received and he is also very eager to get a petition on members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).