Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has identified lawyers as one of the major challenges in the fight against corruption in Nigeria.

Magu alleged that corrupt public officials share some of their stolen wealth with senior lawyers, including Senior Advocates of Nigeria, SANs, with the intention of recruiting them to fight the anti-graft agency.

The EFCC chairman spoke on Tuesday when members of civil society groups held a rally to the commission’s office in Abuja.

“One of the big challenges we have in the effective prosecution of the war on corruption is that of very senior lawyers who Nigeria has been very kind to. They who went to good schools here when Nigeria was good, many of them on government scholarship,” Magu observed.

“When we have corruption cases, cases of people who have stolen food from the mouths of our children; when we have cases of people who have stolen money meant to build hospitals and buy drugs; when we have cases of people who have stolen all the money meant to buy guns for our soldiers to fight Boko Haram, when we have all these cases of wicked people who have stolen Nigeria’s money, they run to these same senior lawyers, give them part of the stolen money and mobilise them to fight us, to delay us in court and to deny Nigerians of justice. These are the people who do not want justice for the common man,” he stated further.

The EFCC chief also took a swipe at journalists whom he alleged are also hired by corrupt people to fight the anti-corruption agency.

“Corrupt people hire journalists to abuse us every day, they say we are not doing the work according to the law,” Magu lamented, adding that contrary to that belief, “no agency that follows the law more than EFCC.”

“Before we arrest you, or seize your property or do anything to you, we check the law; we go to court and get court order. That is why we are winning; that is why we are defeating them every day,” he stated.

Magu used the occasion to seek the support of Nigerians, noting that the billions of naira recovered from corrupt persons will be put into development, building infrastructure and creating employment.