Former Senate president, Bukola Saraki, said on Friday the suspended acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu, took his non-confirmation by the 8th Senate personal and decided to go after him.
The 8th Senate had in 2016 rejected President Muhammadu Buhari’s nomination of Magu as substantive chairman of the EFCC over “damning security report by the Department of State Service (DSS).
Saraki, who disclosed this in a statement, said the EFCC under Magu’s leadership put him through many legal challenges.
The former Kwara State governor said he had endured and defeated one false allegation and malicious litigation after another, in an ill-motivated persecution, intimidation and harassment, through which some vested interests sought to damage his name and label him with charges of corruption.
The ex-Senate president was reacting to a court ruling which ordered the EFCC to return his two houses to him.
Justice Rilwan Aikawa of the Federal High Court, Lagos, had on Thursday dismissed the commission’s application for permanent forfeiture of the two houses in Ilorin, Kwara State, to the Federal Government.
The judge said there was no sufficient basis in the commission’s application for the permanent forfeiture of the houses to the federal government.
Saraki said: “I know that the Senate under my leadership only followed the due and normal procedure during the confirmation process and we never executed any personal agenda against Magu. The records of the Senate are there for the perusal of all Nigerians interested in the truth.
“I hope that with the outcome of today’s case, EFCC learns that a serious issue like the fight against corruption should not be reduced to a forum-shopping means to execute a personal vendetta or prosecute a parochial agenda.
“With the decision of the court, it is my expectation that the EFCC, which has played significant roles in the various court cases against me from the CCT (Code of Conduct Tribunal) to the Supreme Court and back at the Federal High Court with the consequent media trial and malicious campaigns will now leave me alone to live my life, and enjoy my unfettered rights to freedom of thought, expression, association, occupation, and dignity, as a private citizen and focus on serious issues of national development.”
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