About two weeks ago, the Senate again rejected the nomination of Ibrahim Magu as the substantive chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. This rejection, perhaps, did not come as a surprise to those who felt that the distinguished senators could agree with the Presidency on any issue under the sun, but would fight to the finish to deal with a common enemy. Yet, some others were almost sure that his re-nomination would sail through without a hitch. This school of thought based their optimism on the assumption that the Executive, Magu himself, sister anti-graft agencies and other close associates should have settled the pending scores, behind the scenes, before Magu’s second appearance in the hallowed chambers.
The acting EFCC boss appeared only about five days after the celebrated return of President Muhammadu Buhari from his 51 days medical vacation in the United Kingdom. It was, therefore, in order to conclude that the Directorate of State Services would have submitted another report explaining why the damning details in the initial report that nailed Magu should be disregarded. But, according to reports, the DSS rather ambushed Magu with a more incriminatory report that seems to have mounted the final roadblock for the embattled Borno-born police officer.
The initial letter, which marred his integrity test in his first screening appearance, last December, had stressed an alleged unethical involvement with a “questionable businessman,” who was once arrested by the DSS. It revealed that this crony, Commodore Umar Mohammed, had paid for Magu’s N40 million rent on apartment, at N20 million per annum, and had also lavishly furnished the same apartment with a whopping N43 million. The emphasis was on the level of association of a man at the centre of the fight against corruption with “a questionable businessman”, who could afford to pay such an amount on rent for a friend, without regarding this gesture as a political IOU to be settled at a later date. Still, the widely circulated fresh DSS letter, r e p o r t e d l y signed by one Folashade Bello for the Director-General, which revealed more negative findings, apparently put a closure to the case of Magu being confirmed as substantive EFCC head with the part, which read, “An officer appointed as Ag. Chairman of EFCC should by all means be one of impeccable credentials, with proven integrity and capacity to lead the nation’s fight against graft in high and low places. Thus far, it is evident from Magu’s antecedents… that he is by no means that kind of officer.”
Since the legislators are empowered by the Constitution to confirm or reject a nominee, the Executive should be more engrossed in independent investigations into the real reasons for the repeated humiliation of Magu by the DSS
In response to a query ordered by President Muhammadu Buhari through the Attorney-general of the Federation and Justice Minister, Abubakar Malami, on the DSS allegations, and to clear the air of doubt before Magu’s teeming fans, he attempted, well enough, to provide tenable answers. For instance, his explanation, as reported, of why some documents relating to cases under investigation were found in his house when his residence was searched on the orders of a former EFCC Chairman, Mrs. Farida Waziri, were, to me, valid. His clarification on the source of funds for the payment of the rent of his “official residence”, which reportedly gave credit to “the Ministry of the Federal Capital Territory, through the Abuja Metropolitan Management Council, under the safe house scheme”, also cleared the bitter taste of the initial Umar Mohammed theory. The argument that the entire cost for both the two-year rent and the furnishing of the house was N39.628million as against the N83 million being sold as the total figure for this project may, nonetheless, still be a little hard to sell.
Whether his explanations are able to convince Nigerians that he is just being witch-hunted by both the Senate and the DSS may be one critical issue. But the particularly disturbing subject here is the seemingly unending face-off between the DSS and EFCC, which had also played out, some months ago, in the thick of the controversies around the raid and arrest of judges.
Magu, in that case, had said that the DSS had no business raiding and arresting the judges, standing on the point that corruption “does not constitute a threat to national security,” and maintaining that the allegations against the judges amounted to financial crimes, which were under the purview of the EFCC as stipulated in its Act. But the Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, Ekpo Nta, had okayed the DSS raid, saying the agency could perform the duties of the Police. This indicated that there might be a consensus against certain activities of the EFCC under Magu, which he might not be aware of.
Now, when an administration aims at scoring A in the fight against a generally accepted common enemy (corruption in Nigeria’s case) and the soldiers on the battlefield are pointing guns at each other, it follows, naturally, that the enemy will escape without stress, to return at a later date with greater havoc.
Like I said in a previous article, the fact that about 10 of the sitting senators, who are mainly former governors, are being investigated or tried for corrupt practices by the Magu-led EFCC, placed beside some past alleged legislooting activities of members of the National Assembly, makes their rejection stance on Magu appear more egocentric than altruistic. But the Presidency must begin to see the unfolding messy Executive-Legisture face-off as a big shame that could erode the existing goodwill, at home and abroad, earned through reports of President Buhari’s unflinching commitment to the fight against corruption in all its dirty forms.
Notable intellectuals in Nigeria are currently divided on the question of whether the President should re-present Magu or not, especially with the sensitive twists of certificate and fraud scandals involving Senator Dino Melaye and Senate President Bukola Saraki, which the Senate recently dismissed. The scandals should, however, not distract Nigerians from core discussions around Nigeria’s economic wellbeing and the integrity of its frontline anti-graft agency.
Since the legislators are empowered by the Constitution to confirm or reject a nominee, the Executive should be more engrossed in independent investigations into the real reasons for the repeated humiliation of Magu by the DSS. If the DSS is being portrayed by respected Nigerians as an ally in the ‘desperate’ plan by the Senate to remove Magu from office, then Nigeria’s anti-corruption war is in grave danger.
Lessons from the United States show that since 1834, about nine presidential nominees had been stopped by the Senate. According to a December 15, 2016 report of Washington Examiner, on March 9, 1989, the US Senate voted 47-53 to reject John Tower, who was President George Bush’s pick for Defence Secretary.
Tower was reportedly nailed with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s summaries of hundreds of interviews, which indicated that he had a record of alcohol abuse that would make him an unreliable link between the president and the armed forces, the report stated, quoting CQ.
If the FBI report did this kind of damage to Tower’s ambition, the DSS report should not be in anyway trivialised if Nigeria herself must pass the integrity test. Paying the required attention to the details of the report must also go hand in hand with an urgent reorganisation of the country’s antigraft agencies.
