‎DSS did NOT give me fair hearing, says Magu

Ibrahim Magu, acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), says the Department of State Services (DSS) denied him the right to fair hearing.

Magu said this on Wednesday, while reacting to a DSS report which indicted him.

The secret police had failed to give Magu a clean bill of health ahead of his appearance at the red chamber.

“Magu has failed integrity test and will constitute a liability to the anti-corruption drive of the present administration,” read the report the agency presented to the senate.

The screening was going on well until Dino Melaye, senator representing Kogi west, referred his colleagues to the report.

Looking towards the direction of Magu, Melaye asked: “Do you have the integrity to head the commission?

“With what I read this morning, I also have to inform you that every nominee who comes to this senate, we do request for screening from the DSS. It did not start with you, and it will not end with you.

“So it is at the premise of this request that we received this from the DSS, the Department of State Services is to us what the FBI and CIA is to the US, and we cannot ridicule, we cannot undermine, we cannot put to abeyance the report of the DSS.

“Anyone who wants to be chairman of the EFCC must be unblemished, must be pure, must be stainless… After this report, do you still see yourself qualified be the chairman of the EFCC or do we take you to Golgotha?”

In his response, Magu said the DSS never invited him to hear his own side of the story.

He also queried the integrity of the report, wondering why the DSS would have two varying reports on him.

“What does it mean if DSS submits two report on the same person, the same day?”

He refuted the allegation that a corrupt businessman hired a mansion for him as contained in the report.

“The house I’m staying belongs to Dora Akunliyi, the son was looking for money to go back to the US and that was how we got the house,” he said.

“Government has such houses, they are safe houses. When the rent expires I will go back to Karu, I believe that everybody has a duty to fight corruption.

“There is a right to fair hearing, but up till now the DSS has not invited me to hear my own side. This is a constitutional issue.”

The senate subsequently rejected Magu.

In December, the upper legislative chamber also cited the DSS report as reason for not confirming Magu’s appointment.

President Muhammadu Buhari appointed the anti-graft czar in November 2015 after Ibrahim Lamorde was sacked.