Kingsley Nwezeh in Abuja
The Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr. Ibrahim Magu said he was alarmed by what he described as the brazen attempt by a former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Mohammed Bello Adoke, to re-write history and portray himself as victim of persecution regarding the agency’s investigation of the Oil Prospecting Lease (OPL) 245 Settlement Agreement.
He said the media has been awash with previews of Adoke’s book, titled: “Burden of Service: Reminiscences of Nigeria’s former Attorney General,” in which he took aim at the EFCC boss as being part of a deadly triumvirate that had been hounding and persecuting him since he left office in 2015.
A statement by the commission said Adoke also mentioned Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo and former senate leader, Ali Ndume as his other traducers.
“Adoke claims that he had been viciously maligned by this threesome to the extent that he contemplated suicide.
“Specifically, he claimed in Chapter 8 of the book, that Magu was recruited by Prof. Osinbajo to hound and persecute him despite, as he claimed, his role in reinstating Magu to the EFCC from the police “where he had been vegetating,” he said.
The statement signed by EFCC Spokesman, Wilson Ewujaren, noted that “Adoke attributes his source of information on the alleged Osinbajo instruction to Magu against him to an unnamed governor from the North -west, who according to him, claimed Magu told him that he had the instruction of Osinbajo to ‘deal with Adoke.
“Adoke equally claims that an unnamed senator also confided in him that Magu nursed a personal grouse against him because he believed that he (Adoke) owned half of
the Centinary City in Abuja”.
Magu said the fact that “Adoke neither named the North -west governor nor the Senator that provided the weighty intelligence on which he took Magu to the guillotine in his book, could only mean one thing: the claims are tissues of lies, contrived to entertain and attract underserved attention to himself”.
The EFFC boss maintained that “at no time did the vice president discuss, counsel, or direct him in any way on any issue concerning Adoke. It is wicked and evil to make such a false allegation against anybody especially where it is based on hearsay”.
“These yarns, being spewed by hirelings of the former AGF are nothing but a marketing gimmick, dubiously orchestrated to wet public appetite and sufficiently stir curiosity ahead of th/e official release of the book on September 16, 2019”.
The commission stated that “Magu and the EFCC have no interest in any public spat with Adoke who remains a suspect under investigation for criminal offences and against whom a competent court had issued a subsisting warrant for his arrest. The said warrant has already been executed by the International Police Organisation, which placed him on its wanted list.
“The option before Adoke is to return home and answer to his charges.
“It is however gratifying that the former AGF abandoned the idea of committing suicide as taking that route would have amounted to a monumental waste of resources on the part of the EFCC”.
