Human rights lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), has denied receiving N28m from the embattled Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr Ibrahim Magu, who is under probe by a special presidential panel over allegations of corruption.
In a pre-action letter signed by Adeyinka Olumide-Fusika (SAN), Falana demanded a retraction of the claim by a newspaper which published the story online.
According to reports, the newspaper had built it’s story based on a publication by the News Agency of Nigeria NAN, which claimed to have obtained the final report of a prior presidential panel allegedly indicting Magu for being unable to account for the interest generated from N550bn cash recovered from 2015 to 2020.
According to NAN’s publication, the said presidential panel’s report titled, ‘Final Report of the Presidential Investigation Committee on the EFCC Federal Government Recovered Assets and Finances from May 2015 to May 2020’ exposed acts of corruption and money laundering against some EFCC officials, including Magu.
Falana’s lawyer in the letter demanded retraction of the NAN’s story as published by the Lagos-based newspaper within 48 hours, the story was “damning against my client because his entire career as a lawyer has been devoted to fighting human rights abuses and corruption in high and low place”.
He stated, “In the circumstance, my immediate instruction is to demand that you acknowledge your wrongdoing, expressly admit that what you imputed against my client was false, and apologise for your unprofessionalism and the damage you have caused to him.
“I do hope that you will, within the next 48 hours, comply with this gentlemanly request by publication on the front page of your newspaper. Failing compliance, my instruction is to issue a Writ in the tort of defamation in other to afford you an opportunity to prove what you imputed against his my client’s character.”
