Salami to Magu: We’ll give you fair hearing

Chairman of the Presidential Investigative Committee looking into the allegations of wrongdoings levelled against Ibrahim Magu, the suspended Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Justice Ayo Salami, gave some consoling words to the beleaguered senior police officer when he appeared before him yesterday, assuring him of fair hearing.

Salami repudiated claims that the panel had been keeping Magu waiting for days without attending to him Salami, a retired Appeal Court justice, explained to Magu that contrary to the erroneous impression being given that he was being tried, the committee was only an investigative one and not a trial court.

A top source at the committee said: “In the proceedings of August 5, 2020, His Lordship, Justice Isa Ayo Salami, offered clarifications as follow: “That he and the members are not conducting a trial or enquiry on Mr. Ibrahim Magu or the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission “That this is not a panel but a committee saddled only with investigation.  That the committee undertakes to guarantee fair hearing to Magu and all appearing before it in its fact-finding exercise”. On the request by Magu to be availed of the previous video recordings of the committee, Salami pointedly told him that there were no such recordings as such clips were not authorised by the committee.

Salami said: “That the request by Mr. Ibrahim Magu for the video recordings of the proceedings cannot be granted because the previous recordings of the proceedings at the beginning were unauthorised by the investigative committee and the committee does not know the purpose such recordings will serve.

“That the venue of the sitting of the committee is temporary and therefore, it is impossible to install video recording equipment, as requested by Magu. Even superior courts of records do not have video recording facilities and lack of such facilities does not infringe on fair hearing,” the committee chairman concluded. Magu, who had been reporting to the committee since he was invited to appear before it and later suspended from office on the orders of the President early last month, is expected to be formally served with the allegations for which he is to enter his defence.  This was to have happened since last week. Vanguard