The APC has urged Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption Itse Sagay to stop making utterances the National Assembly consider an attack on them.
The party’s publicity secretary Bolaji Abdullahi, in a statement Wednesday, said the APC was making efforts to end the long-drawn-out logjam between the executive and the legislature.
“Our expectation would be that as a Law Professor of repute, Prof. Sagay would appreciate the need to not denigrate the institutions of democracy, be it the Executive, Legislature or Judiciary,” the party said.
It also asked all President Muhammadu Buhari’s appointee to stop making statements that may worsen the bad relationship between the two arms.
Sagay has been rattling the Senate for the brinkmanship it has been playing with confirmation of Buhari nominees for more than four months.
The lawmakers, for instance, has twice rejected the nomination of EFCC’s Ag Chair Ibrahim Magu. They also refused to approve electoral commissioner the president nominated asking him to remove Magu.
The Senate passed a resolution asking its committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions to investigate the comments Sagay made recently, leading to the invitation of the professor to appear before it.
However, Sagay wrote to Senate President Bukola Saraki, asking him to direct the committee to withdraw its summon on him or he would sue them.
He said his criticism was anchored on Section 171(1) of the Constitution, which empowered the President to appoint any person to hold or act as head of any extra-ministerial department.
According to him, he was not served any summons, but he decided to take on the Senate on the violation of his fundamental right to freedom of expression guaranteed by Section 39 of the 1999 Constitution as amended and Article 9 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act (Cap A9) Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004.
He also said Section 88 of the Constitution under which the Senate purportedly summoned him is subject to other provisions of the Constitution, including Section 39, which guarantees freedom of expression.
But the APC said it expects the law professor to play it cool like his principal in order to make governance easier for the president.
It further said it wasn’t comfortable with Sagay statement about the withdrawal of invitation.
“As someone appointed by our government, we find this kind of posturing unacceptable and potentially injurious to the peace efforts by the party.
The party met with the Senate Caucus on Tuesday, hoping to find a way to mollycoddle the Senate many Nigerians believe is becoming overbearing.