Following a press release attributed to the EFCC chairman Ibrahim Magu that between 2011 and 2015 32 entities looted N1.3trillion, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan – who was then Nigeria’s President has in a press release launched by his former aide Reno Omokri – has dismissed this as false. Beneath is the total assertion:
Simply days after the US Division launched a report which established that large corruption stays rife beneath the Buhari administration, the Chairman of the Financial and Monetary Crimes Fee, Ibrahim Magu, has come out with a really incongruous riposte, meant to divert the eye of the general public from the damning report.Ibrahim Magu, as traditional, sought to pull the title of former President Dr. Goodluck Jonathan into the combo and blame him for this newest in a sequence of damaging verdicts on the present administration’s anti-graft warfare.Talking at a programme in Lagos on Monday the 25th of March, 2019, the EFCC boss alleged, with out producing any shred of proof, that “N1.three trillion was stolen between 2011 and 2015 … by 32 entities, together with personal people and organisations.”
That is unusual as a result of Magu was anticipated to have used the discussion board to deal with the problems of impunity raised within the U.S. State Division report which instantly indicted leaders of the anti-corruption campaign by emphatically noting, amongst different issues, that “there’s a local weather of impunity within the President Muhammadu Buhari authorities that enables officers to interact in corrupt practices with a way of exemption from punishment”.The declare of a stolen N1.three trillion public fund which Magu reiterated on Monday will not be new, for the discerning members of the general public, the declare by Magu is rehash of false allegations that began its ill-fated journey in 2016.In January 2016, Muhammadu Buhari’s prophetically named Minister of Info, Alhaji Lai (Lie) Mohammed, claimed at a world press convention in Abuja, to mark the start of the administration’s warfare in opposition to corruption, that 55 well-placed Nigerians stole a whopping N1.34 trillion between 2006 and 2013, a interval masking the Presidencies of Obasanjo, Yar’Adua and Jonathan.
“9 months later, particularly in October 2016, the Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Towards Corruption (PACAC), Professor Itse Sagay repeated the allegation with solely a slight alteration, by alleging that about N1.four trillion was stolen by high authorities officers and businessmen beneath the final three administrations.It is going to be recalled that in July 2015, Adams Oshiomhole, the present chairman of the All Progressive Congress (APC), had alleged {that a} former authorities minister in Nigeria stole $6bn (about N2.1 trillion). Oshiomhole mentioned “US officers knowledgeable President Muhammadu Buhari of the alleged theft throughout his go to to Washington the earlier month.”
“Nevertheless, the U.S. State Division denied the story, asking Oshiomhole, to call the official and never drag United States into Nigeria home politics.The reality is that Ibrahim Magu lied and this isn’t the primary, or second time he has lied to the general public.It could be recalled that Mr. Magu has boasted on many events that the EFCC beneath him had recovered about N739 billion inside two years, including that over N500 billion was recovered in 2017 alone.Nevertheless, Kemi Adeosun, the then minister of finance in the identical Authorities at the moment, determined to place a deceive Mr. Magu’s claims, by revealing in March 2018 that opposite to all of the figures supplied over time by the EFCC’s appearing chairman, Ibrahim Magu, solely N91 billion of such claims may very well be accounted for by the Authorities.
“So, as an alternative of counting on wild and unsubstantiated allegations, I’d advise Mr. Magu to give attention to some information, like the next:
In line with Transparency Worldwide, Nigeria is extra corrupt in the present day than at anytime in the course of the five-year interval of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan’s time in workplace.
Whereas beneath Jonathan and the PDP, Nigeria made her finest ever enchancment on Transparency Worldwide’s Corruption Notion Index, shifting eight locations ahead from 144 to 136 in 2014, however beneath President Buhari and the All Progressives Congress, Nigeria has made her worst ever retrogression, shifting backwards 12 locations from 136 to 148. It is a reality.
It’s also a indisputable fact that beneath the Muhammadu Buhari administration organized the recall, reinstatement and double promotion of Abdulwasiu Maina, the most important ever thief in Nigeria’s civil service historical past and even gave him armed guards.
It’s also a reality beneath the Muhammadu Buhari administration, the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian Nationwide Petroleum Company awarded $25 billion price of contracts with out due course of. To place this in perspective, that cash will pay 1 million Nigerians the proposed new minimal wage of ₦30,000 for four years. It is a reality.
Furthermore, it’s a indisputable fact that famend entertainer, Mr. Charles Oputa, AKA Charly Boy, lately revealed that the spokesman for the Muhammadu Buhari re-election marketing campaign, Mr. Festus Keyamo, paid him a nine-figure sum (at the least 100 million Naira), to assault the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Get together within the February 2019 Presidential elections.
The query Mr. Magu ought to reply is the place did Festus Keyamo get a lot cash that he carelessly throws round?
Lastly, Nigerians noticed clear proof through drone imagery that bullion vans carted money to the house of the Nationwide Chief of the All Progressive Congress, Senator Bola Tinubu, 48 hours to the Presidential election.
Mr. Tinubu even boasted on stay tv that the bullion vans carried cash and that it’s no one’s enterprise. That is even because the Cash
Laundering Act of 2011 makes it unlawful for any particular person to make money funds exceeding 5 Million Naira. And gives that each money transaction over ₦5,000,000 have to be completed through a monetary establishment.
These are the varieties of characters surrounding President Buhari. Characters that you’ll not belief with even your canine.
One had anticipated that each one these remonstrations from the US State Division amongst with the information listed above would immediate Mr. Magu to alter his politically-influenced blame recreation method and undertake a extra skilled technique.
Sadly, that was to not be.
To have merely repackaged the fable of the lacking N1.three billion presently, exhibits that the EFCC boss in all probability thinks that Nigerians are a bunch of individuals with no retentive reminiscence.
Magu ought to understand that his credibility and that of the company he leads ought to derive from the eye he provides to objectivity, professionalism and exhausting proof. It’s somewhat unlucky that Magu selected to enmeshed state establishment such because the EFCC into partisan politics, thereby prioritizing propaganda, deceit, half-truth and rumour because the group’s technique of governance. Sufficient! Nigerians need to hear one thing new, excellent news, tales of hope, and never this rehash of poorly articulated fables like corruption preventing again and non-existing folklores of people that stole in an unknown yr.
Reno Omokri (For Dr. Goodluck Jonathan)
Share your story with us! Email MandyNews1@gmail.com
Source: MandyNews.com
