I do not want to believe that Ibrahim Magu, the arrested, detained and still-undergoing-inquisition ex-acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), actually said all that has been attributed to him. If, however, he said all those, especially about going on hunger strike, about asking the Inspector-General of Police to help facilitate bail for him, then, he publicly confirms himself a daft, pitiably unintelligent and grossly unworthy of the assignment he was given in the first place.
See, I don’t like it when humans who should display higher understanding and knowledge play the fool. It beats me why anyone in Magu’s shoes wouldn’t read history, or even a bit of classical philosophy, to appreciate the impact of the golden rule in the affairs of humans. Thales, an ancient Greek philosopher, said, “Avoid doing what you would blame others for doing.”
Sextus, the Pythagorean, said, “What you do not want to happen to you, do not do it yourself either.”
Isocrates put it better: “Do not do to others that which angers you when they do it to you.” Isocrates lived between 436 and 338BC.
Seneca the Younger, who lived between 4BC and 65AD, and notable for his practice of Stoicism, authored an essay on slavery wherein he cautioned slave masters thus: “Treat your inferior as you would wish your superior to treat you.”
All the above are aspects of The Golden Rule –Do unto others as you would have others do unto you – which was in 1993 endorsed by 143 leaders of the world’s major faiths as part of the ‘declaration towards a global ethic.’
Magu is not aware of this and probably never read about it.
Whatever your powers, the Golden Rule demand that you be more circumspect in their usage because tables do turn. And turn they must. But in Magu’s world, the tables are static, thus, his crass display of brawn, instead of brain, in the expression of the powers of his office at thief catcher. No wonder many of those who had encountered him, and his ‘boys’, are reveling and gloating over his ordeal in the hands of the same government for which he abused accused persons’ rights, disrespected them, abused their dignity and made them look like common criminals even when the law he was enforcing said the accused was deemed innocent until proven guilty. Not just to be proven guilty, but, to be proved guilty beyond every reasonable doubt.
Magu had in the discharge of his powers practically told Nigerians that anyone that came before him was already guilty until proven otherwise. In other words, every invitation sent out by the commission to a Nigerian was one sent to someone who Magu and his boys had investigated, prosecuted and pronounced guilty without observance of the legal right to fair hearing. It was for this reason that many people dreaded an EFCC invitation. Somehow, he must have wondered why the courts existed, because he probably would have preferred that the commission had powers like those of the Roman Inquisition with capacity to do what was done to Giordano Bruno in 1600.
Magu’s EFCC lacked tact. It was crude. It lacked decorum and operated in a manner suggesting that Nigeria’s laws had been suspended just for it to uproot corruption from Nigeria. Corruption is a problem in Nigeria, as in almost every other country. The first military coup in Nigeria’s history was premised on corruption. The coupists talked about the “ten percenters.” Every subsequent coup followed the same narrative – corruption. But to fight it, you don’t only need tact, you also need intellect. The fact that EFCC is a government agency empowered by law to prosecute those found wanting for crimes that fall under its purview does not empower it to so brazenly disregard and abuse those aspects of the law that protects rights of the accused.
To understand my meaning, take a cursory look at the property forfeitures won by EFCC against Nigerians. Hardly any of the court proceedings observed the rule of fair hearing. Most of the forfeitures were won against persons who never appeared before the court. Some of the property owners are unknown to the commission. EFCC’s style was simple! Isolate a property whose actual owner it was unable to find and tag it “proceeds of corruption” then go for forfeiture. By creating the problem of lack of fair hearing, EFCC opens the possibility of reclamation of those properties in the future. That is one effect of lack of tact and dearth of reasoning at the commission.
I am not a prophet, but I see the judiciary, post-2023, being inundated with suits for review of some forfeitures and even suing EFCC for trespass and rights violation. There are always two sides to a story. EFCC, under Magu’s supervision, did away with that maxim and went for a single-line story, those told by its investigators.
However, what Magu is now faced with is the same media he and his commission dished several Nigerians between 2015 and 2019. From the EFCC’s pot, Nigerians were dished tales of discovery of abandoned cash. Some in pit latrines, in farmlands, in overhead water tanks, some in soak-away pits. Nigerians were also entertained to a gale to cash discoveries abandoned in shops, at airports, in hotel rooms, in estates, in motor parks. At a time, discovery of abandoned cash became a weekly relay. Nigerians were really entertained. But ask, what happened to all the abandoned cash? That was a mystique that was created to give EFCC a tag it did not really need. Now, it is obvious, from tales about Magu’s involvement with recovered loot, that such tales may have been created to place wool over watchful eyes.
Magu was given an assignment far above his capacity. He lacked both the moral, mental and psychological capacity to discharge the office. The only way he could execute it was to apply tactics that were incongruent with sensibility. But I do not blame him fully. He was sucked into the mindset that attended the arrival of the administration he served. It was a mindset of ‘we versus them’. For this reason, he created his team of ‘boys’ who, like him, believed that pilfering the public purse and economic crime was a crime located in the southern part of his country. For this reason, Magu’s EFCC became deeply provincial and fought the corruption war with weapons that respect tribal marks and faith. He refused to see economic crime committed against the country in the mines of Zamfara State but saw clearly those committed in the oil fields of the delta region. His EFCC had evidence that led to conviction of some southern politicians but created a window for northern allies to trade in. Forget ex-Governors Jolly Tanko Nyame and Joshua Dariye. They were never counted for North. That mindset also created a feeling of entitlement in Magu’s little mind. Somehow, he started seeing things in his care differently. But do you blame him? No, he merely took a cue from what is already a norm in the government. Almost all of them feel entitled to dip their hands into public resources in their care, to make up for previous deprivations.
Finally, the mindset further created a problem where Magu, somehow, believed that, since the President, by his body language, wanted to put an end to corruption, whatever he did, including corrupting the process itself, was fine. That is why he is now being mocked.
Secretary to the Government of the Federation (as he then was), David Babachir Lawal, implied so when he told a reporter that the fight against corruption was skewed against PDP buffs because they were the ones in power and that “we” have never been in power. Now that the “we” are in power, Nigerians have seen clearly that the quest for change is not really about their society and its growth but about catapulting people chastised by poverty, hunger, disease, lack of shelter, etc, to positions where they feel entitled to help themselves with public resources to satisfy those wants, not just for themselves, but also, for unborn generations they are not even sure of.