{"id":13835,"date":"2018-12-13T20:02:05","date_gmt":"2018-12-13T20:02:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=13835"},"modified":"2018-12-13T20:02:05","modified_gmt":"2018-12-13T20:02:05","slug":"i-was-never-investigated-by-dss-magu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=13835","title":{"rendered":"‘I Was Never Investigated By DSS’-Magu"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Tony Orilade<\/strong>,, Ag. Head, Media & Publicity, EFCC.
\nThe Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ibrahim Magu, on Thursday,\u00a0\u00a0December 13, 2018,\u00a0told Justice Doris T. Okuwobi of the State High Court, Ikeja, Lagos that he had never been investigated by the Department of State Security, DSS.
\nMagu stated this while giving evidence in a N100m suit he filed against the publisher of The Sun newspaper and four others over an alleged defamation.
\nJoined in the suit are the Editor, Saturday Sun; Fred Itua, James Ojo and Lawrence Enyoghasu.
\nMagu is seeking compensation for libelous imputations and statements made against him in a story published in the March 25, 2017 edition of The Saturday Sun entitled: \u201cMagu Under Fresh Probe Over 2 Abuja Mansions\u201d.
\nAt today\u2019s proceedings, Magu, who gave evidence in-chief, told the
\ncourt that the statement of oath written by him through his lawyer,
\nWahab Shittu, represented his evidence in the proceedings.
\nLed in evidence by Shittu,\u00a0\u00a0Magu\u00a0told the court that the publication was done deliberately to damage his reputation.
\n\u201cThe publication said I was under probe.
\n“But no government agency, has probed or investigated me since I came to the EFCC,” he said.
\nIn his further testimony, he told the court that the publication was completely false, adding that “I cannot buy a house in Maitama, even if I have the money because houses there are so expensive.
\n“I live a modest life.\u00a0\u00a0My wife is a civil servant. We have only one house in Karu site, Abuja; and when I retire, I will go back there. The onus is on the defendants to produce the owners of the properties. The publication has done a lot of damage to my reputation and that of my lineage.”
\nWhen Magu’s lawyer sought\u00a0\u00a0to tender a letter of complaint written on behalf of his client to the publishers of the newspaper, counsel to the defendants, Charles Enweluata, objected to its admissibility on the grounds that it did not carry the legal practitioner’s seal.
\nHe, however, said the “irregularity was curable.”
\nIn his response, Shittu said: “It does not derogate the admissibility of the letter since the witness has identified and confirmed it.
\n“It is written on my letter head. The contents are relevant to the proceedings and the author of the letter has also confirmed it. He, therefore, urged the court to discountenance the objection by the defence counsel and admit the document in evidence.
\nIn her ruling, the Judge ordered the claimant’s counsel to get the seal. \u201cIt will be admissible upon the fixing of the seal to the letter”, she ruled.
\nWhen the seal was eventually produced, the court admitted the document in evidence.
\nThe claimant also confirmed to the court his statement in paragraph 18 of the said letter, where he mentioned that the Federal Government, through of the Office of the then Secretary to the Government of the Federation,\u00a0officially appointed him as the acting Executive Chairman of the EFCC.
\nThe letter dated November 9, 2015 was admitted in evidence as exhibit.
\nWhen the counsel to the claimant sought to tender a series of letters of promotion as well as letters of transfers that Magu had received in the course of his career as a police officer, the defence counsel objected to their admissibility on the grounds that they were electronically generated.
\nCounsel to the claimant, therefore, applied to withdraw the letters in the circumstance, saying, \u201cI will apply to withdraw the documents, which are said to be electronically generated for now, even though there is certification for them.”
\nGiving further evidence, Magu told the court that the second story by the newspaper entitled” Magu: The Untold Story”, was not intended to correct the damage created by the first report done on him.
\n“They went to my town and interviewed several people. They wanted to get more things to damage my reputation. But they were disappointed.”
\nUnder cross-examination by counsel to the defendants, Charles Enweluata, Magu admitted that his wife, Fatima, was not a party in the suit but that she was allegedly linked to the properties mentioned.
\nWhen asked if he read in the story that he was being investigated by the DSS, he said “Yes,\u00a0\u00a0I read the story.
\n“But there was no name of any agency investigating my wife or me
\n\u201cThe paper did not mention DSS.”
\nAlso, when the defence counsel put it to the claimant that the story carried the name of the Department of State Security as the investigating body, Magu said: “The paper did not mention DSS.
\n“I do not agree that the DSS investigated me or my wife in any manner.”
\nConsequently, the matter was adjourned to February 28, 2019 for further hearing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Tony Orilade,, Ag. Head, Media & Publicity, EFCC. The Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ibrahim Magu, on Thursday,\u00a0\u00a0December 13, 2018,\u00a0told Justice Doris T. Okuwobi of the State High Court, Ikeja, Lagos that he had never been investigated by the Department of State Security, DSS. Magu stated this while giving evidence […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":651,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13835\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}