We'll Be Going After Lawyers Who Help Looters Escape Justice - EFCC Boss, Magu

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission
boss has said that the anti-graft agency will soon
go after senior lawyers who aid and abet financial
and economic crimes.

Speaking at the opening of a one-day workshop
organised by the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) at
the Rockview hotel in Abuja on Tuesday, the acting
chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu, said the anti-
graft agency will soon go after senior lawyers who
aid and abet financial and economic crimes.

In a statement issued by Wilson Uwujaren, EFCC
spokesman, Magu said at the workshop organised
in collaboration with the Presidential Advisory
Committee against Corruption (PACC), that the
EFCC could not stamp out corruption in the country
without the support of all stakeholders.

“We consider everybody a stakeholder, as the EFCC
does not have monopoly of knowledge to defeat all
shades of graft,” he said.

The EFCC boss urged legal practitioners to always
play by the rule and avoid being used by corrupt
elements to pervert justice, adding that “what is
important is the interest of the nation which should
be placed above any other interest”.

Ibrahim Magu who commended the bar for being
good partners in the fight against graft, however
decried the attitudes of some lawyers who
compromise on their jobs for criminals to escape
justice, adding that lawyers have a greater stake in
the war more than any other class of professional.

In reiterating his commitment towards fighting
money laundering, the EFCC boss warned that, “we
will not stop going after people who are involved in
laundering money”.

“It doesn’t matter who you are, the law is a
respecter of nobody especially those who commit
crime. Whether you are EFCC, SAN or whatever,
sooner or later we will start going after people who
buy properties with stolen funds as well as people
who help others to escape justice,” he said.