SENATE VS MAGU-ALI: Efcc,Customs May Launch Inter-Agency Investigation Against Saraki

The war of supremacy and innocence rocking the leadership of the Nigeria Customs service and that of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commision may be taking a new dimension. The embattled chairman of the EFCC Ibrahim Magu may be fighting for his integrity especially with his humiliation by the Nigerian senate. It is a clear case of no love lost between the anti-graft head and the leadership of the senate who turned him down for the second time despite the presidential preference placed on his confirmation.

EFCC by some reports had submitted a report to the president detailing involvement of the senate president and some of his aides in money laundering.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has furnished President Muhammadu Buhari with details of how the President of the Nigerian Senate, Bukola Saraki, and his aides allegedly laundered up to N3.5 billion from the Paris Club loan refund.

The report, compiled by detectives in the anti-graft agency, followed months of investigation, and was submitted to the president on March 10, 2017, days before the senate rejected his nomination a second time.The EFCC narrated how Mr. Saraki, using his deputy chief of staff and other aides, laundered N3.5 billion that he allegedly received from the Paris Club loan refund to state governors.

But in its report to the president, the EFCC detailed how Mr. Saraki, in 2016, introduced Gbenga Makanjuola, a former lawmaker who now serves as his deputy chief of staff, to Kathleen Erhimu, an Access Bank staff. The EFCC identified Ms. Erhimu as Mr. Saraki’s relationship manager at Access Bank.
Mr. Makanjuola would later work with Robert Mbonu, a former managing director of Heritage Bank, whose firm, Melrose General Services Limited, was said to have served as consultant to the Nigerian Governors’ Forum.

But office of the Senate President had since denied this describing it as "Mere Mudslinging Campaign". In a statement released by the media office of Saraki, it read in part  "We state categorically that no aide of the Senate President acted on Saraki's behalf in whatever they do with Mr. Mbonu".


Ibrahim Magu was also accused of orchestrating false accusations against Saraki because of his failure to secure confirmation on the floor of the senate. "It is obvious that at this point when Mr. Magu believes the Senate President should be blamed for his failure to secure confirmation as Chairman of EFCC by the Senate, he would want to fight back by cooking up reports and masterminding its leakage.  We maintain our stand that Dr. Saraki has no direct or indirect link to the distribution of the NGF money. No money from the Paris Club refund was paid to Dr. Saraki."

With the war raging on between EFCC and the senate on one side and the senate and Customs on the other, checks reveal that there may be an inter-agency investigation of some senators with Saraki leading the pack. While the scandal of import duty evasion by Saraki falls on the premise of the Nigeria Customs, there is every chance these agencies compare notes.

On the radar also are Senators Hope Uzodinma and Dino Melaye. But in all, Nigerians are of the view that this may be a vendetta coordinated by the presidency in order to fight back the humiliation which the senate subject the presidency to over the week.