You can’t verify recovered assets in Magu’s absence, lawyer tackles Salami panel

Wahab Shittu, counsel to Ibrahim Magu, suspended chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), says verification of recovered assets in the absence of his client is “an exercise in futility”.

In a statement on Sunday, Shittu said there are media reports stating that the Ayo Salami-led probe panel set up to investigate the allegations against Magu has started verification of assets recovered by the anti-graft commission.

Magu is being probed over allegations of mismanagement of assets recovered under his watch.

According to Shittu, the timing of the report on the panel embarking on the verification exercise in Magu’s absence, shows evidence of a “predetermined agenda”.

“In the story entitled ‘Magu: Presidential Panel Begins Verification of Assets’, the sponsors of the story within the panel were quoted as saying that Magu did not give satisfactory answers to its questions on recovered assets,” the lawyer said.

“The story had said the panel was embarking on verification of seized assets across the country in the absence of our client or his counsel, in spite of our client being the main subject of inquiry by virtue of the instruments establishing the judicial commission of inquiry.

“It is an exercise in futility for the panel to conduct verification of recovered assets in the absence of Magu and his lawyers and thereafter proceed to write a report without clarification from him.

“Ordinarily, we would have ignored the media report like the previous orchestrated stories against our client.

“But we are of the opinion that the timing is suspicious and there is the need to take up issues with the media report on the grounds that the reporter quoted sources close to the panel as the arrowheads of the story with a predetermined agenda.”

Shittu, who said the report is prejudicial to the panel, also stated that “it is apparent that the panel is trying at all cost to indict our client before the submission of its report to President Muhammadu Buhari.”

“It is on record that our client closed his defence two weeks ago without the opportunity to call any witness to strengthen his innocence as applications to call witnesses and subpoena certain individuals, including AGF Abubakar Malami (SAN), were blatantly refused by Salami,” he said.

“We wish to say with a high sense of responsibility that our client has nothing to hide, unlike the panel that refused to give him a fair hearing and has been sitting for about six months without a timeline and numerous illegalities.

“Our view, arising from the media story, is that the fate of our client is being predetermined even before the panel submits its report to the President and this will be tragic.

“This is because it is elementary that the panel is a judicial commission of inquiry, established pursuant to the Judicial Commission of Inquiry Act 2004. That being so and by virtue of being an inferior tribunal, the panel ought not to descend into the arena lest it faces the danger of being blindfolded by the dust raised by the combatants.”