It’s not unlikely the stand-off between the presidency and the Senate will continue as the executive arm yesterday confirmed its support for EFCC’s Ag. Chair Ibrahim Magu whose nomination the lawmakers have rejected twice.
Speaking at an interview with journalists and activists on Tuesday night, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo said Magu enjoys his confidence and that of the president.
And for that reason, Magu will remain in the saddle no matter what the Senate does about his conformation.
“I’m fully in support of Magu as the EFCC Chairman just as the president is…” Mr Osinbajo said.
The Senate recently made an excuse of Magu’s continued nomination for not screening electoral commissioners President Muhammadu Buhari forwarded to the upper chamber.
“It is up to the Senate to make their judgement. If our candidate is rejected, …, we can represent our candidate,” said Osinbajo.
But the lawmakers have vowed not consider Magu if his name is sent again by the president.
The vice president said although the EFCC Act requires that an EFCC chairman be confirmed by the Senate, part of Section 171 of the constitution, which is superior to the act, does not mandate such Senate confirmation.
He also described the State Security Service’s action of writing a report against a Magu as “a robust expression of our institutions of government.
According to him, it shows that the administration does not interfere in the works of its security agencies, making reference to the U.S. where the FBI wrote a report against the U.S. President Donald Trump.
“He (President Buhari) has not interfered with what the DSS want to say,” Osinbajo said.
Osinbajo said President Buhari merely studied the SSS report and reviewed Magu’s response which he found satisfactory.
The stand of the presidency will come as a surprise to many Nigerians following the political solution the ruling APC sought to end the rift between the two arms.
In the peace-making effort, the party leadership last week tried to pacify the Senate, and also reprimanded Buhari’s appointees like Prof. Itse Sagay disparaging the lawmakers.
Sagay, who chairs the Presidential Committee Against Corruption, has insisted the Senate is ridden with corruption, and that is why it refuses to confirm Magu.
The law professor even threatened ti sue the Senate who summoned him for expressing his opinion.
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