The “Nation Newspaper” has apologised to Human Rights Activist and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana over claims that the former Acting Chairman of the EFCC, Ibrahim Magu gave the SAN the sum of N28 million.
Falana had in a statement signed by his lawyer, Adeyinka Olumide-Fusika denied receiving the said sum, stating that the report was “damning against his entire career as a lawyer.” He demanded that the news organisation retracted the claim and tendered an unreserved apology with 48 hours of the publication or face a defamation lawsuit.
The “Nation Newspaper” has now retracted the story and apologised to Falana in a statement published on its platform, Today.
The statement reads:
Respected rights crusader, Mr Femi Falana (SAN), was not paid N28 million or any sum to handle any case by the suspended Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Chairman Ibrahim Magu.
He also never prosecuted any case for the commission.
This is contrary to a report with the headline: More trouble for Magu as new facts on re-looting of recovered funds emerge , published on our website on Saturday.
We apologise to Mr Falana, who we hold in high esteem, for the story which our Online section unwittingly picked from the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) . We hereby retract the story.
We agree that the report imputed against Falana was false, and on realising that, we took the story down. We regret the damage the story would have caused him and apologise unreservedly to him.
