The banner created the false
impression that the EFCC handled the prosecution of the Judge and his wife
which case was dismissed on Wednesday, April 5, 2017 as lacking in merit.
Curiously going through the body of
the story on page 6 of the newspaper, there was nowhere the EFCC was mentioned
as the prosecuting agency. Instead, the writer made copious references to the
Department of State Security (DSS) and the office of the Attorney General of
the Federation as the prosecution authorities. The report in fact is emphatic
that: ”The charges were filed by the office of the Attorney General of the
Federation, following the raid by the Department of State Services’ operatives
on the Judge’s house on October 7, 2016”. How and why the name of the EFCC
crept into the banner headline remains a puzzle except that The Sun group
appears to have made EFCC bashing a pastime in recent times.
A few days ago, the Saturday edition
of the newspaper went to town with a scandalous report linking ownership of two
mansions in Ministers Hill, Maitama, Abuja, to the wife of Mr. Ibrahim Magu,
the Acting Chairman of the EFCC. Mr. Magu was therefore forced to write the
publication through his lawyers, asking for retraction, public apology and
compensation for libel.
Even rookie journalists and non
media practitioners in Nigeria know that the EFCC had no role in Justice
Ademola’s arrest and trial but it serves The
Sun’s agenda to consistently malign
the Commission by linking the agency to the case because the ruling was not
favourable. Were the judgment to have been otherwise, would The Sun attribute
the case to the EFCC?
The Commission therefore demands
retraction of the offensive report and an apology that must be given the same
prominence as the story in question.
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