Leading voices in the North, yesterday, expressed divergent views over the memo reportedly written by the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, asking President Muhammadu Buhari to sack chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, over sundry offences, ranging from diversion of recovered loot, insubordination and lack of control, among others.
The leaders, who spoke from Kano and Kaduna, both in the North West, where Malami hails from, said it was wrong for Malami to try to bring down Magu at all cost, despite the risky assignment he has performed for Nigeria in the last five years.
They include Dr. Junaid Mohammed, a medical practitioner and politician from Kano, Danjuma Sarki, a top-ranking Peoples Democratic leader in Kaduna and the Kaduna State Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Rev John Joseph Hayab.
Junaid Mohammed, who was a member of the 2014 Constitutional Conference, berated Malami for daring to accuse Magu of fraud, insubordination and disloyalty, apparently due to his inability to pocket Magu to lose focus on the anti-graft war.
Mohammed, therefore, advised Malami to resign and tender unreserved apology to Nigerians and President Buhari who appointed him into the exalted position he is trying to ridicule.
“Malami should urgently resign if he feels uncomfortable with Magu, a man hailed and feared by many crooked persons because of his unwavering disposition in the fight against graft.
In his words, if he means that Magu should break the law and allow him (the AGF) to act arbitrarily and put his own consideration over the national consideration and provision of the laws; if he is not happy and he must have complained to the President and the President has not deemed it fit to remove Magu, Malami should have common sense and common decency to resign.
“After all he is a political appointee. President Buhari would not sack one of them. But he, the AGF, should resign because he is the one who is unhappy by making such scandalous statement aimed at belittling Magu. But it is actually the President that he is belittling, not Magu.”
On allegation that Magu is not transparent enough by paying more money from recovered loot into the CBN than what he claimed, Dr. Junaid said: “They should investigate and we should be very careful because what the Attorney General of Federation, Malami, says or does is suspect because he has never had other issues with Magu.
”The important thing to realize is that we must follow the law. The law does not give the kind of leverage to anybody to open his mouth and accuse anybody. If the AGF has started a media propaganda campaign against the principal officer of one of the most important agencies of government, then there must be something fundamentally wrong.”
But a Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, chieftain in Kaduna, Danjuma Sarki, said the memo released by Malami to President Buhari was an indication that looting and re-looting of Nigerians’ common patrimony was still rampant, despite Buhari’s claim of fighting graft.
“The number of high profile corruption cases and the suspects who were allowed to go scot-free by this administration through intentional act and poorly prosecuted cases are alarming and should worry the government which claims to be fighting corruption.
This is a testimony of the failure of the President himself and the people he has entrusted with responsibilities. It is rather unfortunate that Nigeria is being led by incompetent and greedy people who are working at cross purposes for their personal interests,” Sarki said.
On his part, the Chairman of the Kaduna State chapter of Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, Rev John Joseph Hayab, berated the AGF for taking a matter he should have called Magu and discussed privately into a scandalous memo without any evidence to prove his allegations against a subordinate.
Hayab noted: “We must not allow this poor tradition of portraying every appointee in bad light just to have him or her removed or have their career destroyed. One good thing you must give credit to this current administration is not rushing to remove any appointee just because some people are speaking ill of him.
Vanguard