The tough talking crime fighter and anti corruption czar has finally succumbed to the jaws of the monster he was fighting.
If anyone had a very heavy moral burden to justify the confidence reposed on him, it was Ibrahim Magu. Twice rejected by the Senate for allegedly not being clean of corrupt tendencies, President Muhammad Buhari in obstinate defiance of the National Assembly kept faith with him and retained him, for an unprecedented five years, in Acting Capacity, as Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.
His visage, which is naturally uneasy with the eyes, cast him in a sterner light, than one of the very handsome predecessor, Nuhu Ribadu. He looked like a No Nonsense crime buster and cut for the job.
When he tongue lashed alleged, or indicted persons of corrupt practices, he bellowed with such disgust and sanctimonious pain, that, you will feel the sense of duty he was bound by to fight corruption.
His biggest hit was former President Goodluck Jonathan. When he said over 1.3 trillion Naira was stolen under Jonathan between 2011-2015, he was blunt in his decrial. Hear him:
“One third of this money (#1.3trn), using World Bank rates and cost, could have comfortably been used to construct well over 500km of roads; build close to 200 schools; educate about 4000 children from primary to tertiary levels at N25million per child; build 20,000 units of two-bedroom houses across the country and do even more”
He went further to argue:
“The cost of this grand theft, therefore, is that these roads, schools and houses will never be built and these children will never have access to quality education because a few rapacious individuals had cornered for themselves what would have helped secure the lives of the future generations, thereby depriving them of quality education and healthcare, among others.”
Alas! Magu is today in the net for allegedly relooting monies recovered from looters of the public treasury.
Of a truth, I feel sorry for him. He was saddled with the most difficult job in Nigeria and perhaps, the world. The easiest job is to judge, condemn, and highlight the weaknesses and mistakes of others. This apparently easy job is however the most difficult, because, we reflect very much the things we make haste to condemn in others. Every Holier-than- thou grandstanding usually ends in tragedy.
That gene of the Pharisees- hypocrisy, is a dormant gene in us. Watch those who make it their self appointed business to highlight the sins of others in the Church, Office or wherever, they are usually the worst of sinners.
Au Revoir Magu! The curtains have fallen.