Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu, gave the umbrella body of lawyers, the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) an earful on Wednesday. The NBA leadership was on a courtesy visit to Magu’s office.
The EFCC boss lamented that some lawyers have become “vandals of the temple of justice”.
In a statement issued by EFCC spokesperson, Wilson Uwujaren, after the meeting, the EFCC chairman said “Society is not served when prominent members of the bar not only take clearly tainted briefs, but even facilitate the commission of crimes by knowingly supplying the technical know-how and later, helping in the dispersal of the proceeds of crime.
“There are lawyers within the fold of the NBA who ought not to be among your noble ranks. Those people are not fit to be called ministers; rather, they are vandals of the temple of justice.”
Magu said the EFCC will need lawyers on its side if the war against corruption is to be successfully waged.
“Law enforcement, just as the judiciary, encompassing the bar and the bench, is a critical link in the justice delivery system of any society. I dare say that even when opinions and tactics differ, the interest of the two blocs cannot but converge in the overriding interest of the people,” he said.
The EFCC chairman, who stated that no other anti-graft agency in Nigeria had beaten the record of the EFCC in the areas of prosecutions and convictions, further described the ordinary Nigerian as the victim of money laundering , embezzlement , diversion of funds and frauds.
He therefore urged members of the legal profession to share in the vision of President Muhammadu Buhari’s war against corruption.
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