MIND-GAME: Blackmail And Gagging Of Media Houses By EFCC’s Magu

👤 EXCLUSIVE: Adenike Lucas and Danjuma Aliyu, DENISAURUS News

Media houses who have access to information on Ibrahim Mustafa Magu’s involvement in corruption, are being gagged and threatened to stop publishing such stories, DENISAURUS News can authoritatively reveal.

Revealing its ordeal, a publisher informed DENISAURUS News of how Mr Magu, the Acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, who was described as a “perennial offender,” threatened them if they continue to publish any news of his corrupt activities.

He vowed that, he would ensure that a case relating to their sibling at the Commission would be re-investigated, if they did not desist from publishing those corruption stories.

The publisher has since withdrawn and stopped publishing news against Mr Magu, 58, a Borno State indigene, whose nomination as the substantive chairman of EFCC was rejected twice by NASS Senate, due to an indicting report from the Department of State Service, DSS.

The secret police noted that Mr Magu, was a liability to the corruption fight of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration. DENISAURUS News has constantly reported in detail, several corruption perpetrated by Mr Magu. These were later corroborated in the DSS report.

But, Mr Magu, does not want anyone to publish details of his corrupt ways.

He once arrested Abubakar Usman Sidiq (now media aide to Senate President Ahmed Lawan), a leading Abuja based blogger from Kogi State, who published a story written by the editor of DENISAURUS News.

The news which reports the issue of the re-looting of assets recovered by the EFCC under Magu’s watch remains a topic the public continues to ask the Federal Government about.

Many want to know where all the recovered funds Mr Magu liked to boast about before.

Ironically, when asked this question at his screening, he went mute. Similarly, the former finance minister, Kemi Adeosun also made a request for him to provide the details, a query, which he failed to adequately respond to.

After the arrest of the blogger in August 2016, his blog ABUSIDIQU.com was gagged and did not publish much stories against Mr Magu again.

In 2017, when The Sun Publishing Ltd, revealed that Mr Magu had properties in his wife’s name at Maitama, Abuja, the EFCC stormed the Lagos office of the media house.

In its response to the invasion, the publisher of The Sun said that the public should “take note of this authoritarianism and high handedness, which has been the hallmark of Magu’s leadership of the EFCC.

But even with this, Mr Magu did not stop harassing the media. He went on to threaten to sue a media house, 247Ureport which exposed his governorship ambition in 2018.

Though it is clear that Mr Magu is shoring up finances for a political career, he did not want it to be revealed yet. He was furious on discovering it had been, and he vowed to shut down the paper who published his secret intention – which was known to close associates of his.

Instead of revealing those secret intention of Mr Magu and his corrupt nature, Mr Magu prefers for media houses, to write nice editorials about how he is deceptively fighting corruption.

To achieve this, Mr Magu goes around sharing money in brown envelopes and confidential information to media houses that play ball with him, especially two prominent online medias.

The EFCC boss had on several occasions, along with the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, done this.

Aside to diverting funds of the EFCC needlessly, the anti-graft boss pays media houses like Sahara Reporters and Premium Times, to launder his image.

These media houses favoured by Mr Magu, also get to be given confidential documents on Politically Exposed Persons, PEPs, for them to publish. This was what led to the NFIU’s suspension from EGMONT Group, a renowned financial intelligence unit.

The news of the suspension, which was exclusively reported by DENISAURUS News, caused Mr Magu to release a press statement where he claimed the news was “fake,” although it was factual.

He has not apologised for the defamation of character on Adenike Lucas, Editor-In-Chief of DENISAURUS News till date.