Magu’s confirmation controversy, sign of internal contradiction in APC – Kaka

Alhaji Adegbenga Sefiu Kaka was the deputy governor of Ogun State between 1999 and 2003. He also represented Ogun East Senatorial District between 2011 and 2015 in the upper chamber of the National Assembly. In this interview, he described the controversy over confirmation of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Acting Chairman, Ibrahim Magu by the Senate as a pronouncement of internal contradiction within the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) . He also speaks on other sundry national issues. PATRICK OKOHUE reports

*****The Senate for the second time recently refused to confirm Ibrahim Magu as the Chairman of the EFCC citing a report by the DSS which they said indicted him . Many Nigerians however felt that the Senate had ulterior motive for not confirming Magu. What is your position on this?

We all know that it is the constitutional role of the National Assembly to screen any nominee of Mr. President. We are also aware that the President has the prerogative of nomination. What is baffling is the contradictory report coming from the DSS that is responsible to Mr. President and that report being used now by the National Assembly as basis for the disqualification of Magu. Ordinarily, we will say that the centre is no longer holding at the executive level.

But the case is beyond that, when we have a majority party in power, when I say the majority in power, I mean that the same party controlling the executive is the one that also has majority in the National Assembly, one would have expected that it is the opposition party that is in the minority that will be creating problems for the ruling party.

But while the minority party is in disarray, we are now having a scenario where internal contradiction is setting the same party in power against itself. That is the most embarrassing and annoying part of it. This is because where we have harmony, where we have understanding, all issues that has to do with any appointment whatsoever, whether minister or head of parastatal or ambassadorial and so on and so forth one would have expected that it would have been resolved at the parliamentary caucus’ level, especially those that will require the approval of the Senate.

This could be facilitated by the structure of the party by bringing the legislators and the executive together in a meeting under a parliamentary caucus meeting and resolve the issues before getting to the National Assembly where they can easily use their majority to get it through. But it seems we are having a divided house, thus making the centre difficult to hold. It is internal contradiction of the highest order.

So as far as Magu is concerned, we cannot comment on the so called report, but I am sure that there is no security report that will be coming that will not first of all land on the table of Mr. President before it is being copied to other people.

To date, nobody in the DSS Office has been sanctioned. We can’t rightly say what is happening with the executive, if one of the parastatal under the executive is embarrassing the government and nobody has been sacrificed, even if only to serve as deterrent to others or to be a wake up call to the organisation but nothing has happened. This is bothering on the same impunity we have been talking about , bothering on the same corruption, because corruption is not only money stealing. When you have dereliction of duty, when people fail to do what they should do and do what that should not be done, it is all part and parcel of corruption. And that is why they are making the nation hopeless for the ordinary man on the street.

It makes the heart to bleed. All other side attractions, Magu is this , Magu is that, for Mr. President to re-present him , for the President to have said he has investigated and found the man not culpable, for the benefit of doubt, they should have allowed him to continue with his job and if there is anything that is well established against him, we are saying we are fighting corruption, take him up .

Afterall others are still working in their various positions despite allegations of corruption against them, then what is wrong with Magu? Until proven otherwise, whatever accusations leveled against him he is still presumed innocent. So we are just making unnecessary distraction instead of facing the challenges confronting us as a nation.

The socio-economic challenges facing the nation are too enormous for us. What is happening now is portraying us as an unserious nation. Some people are already fighting about 2019 when the assignments for four years we have not been able to discharge it creditably, we are now fighting , the North must retain power, the South must retain it, since the time they have retained power what have they done with the power. The elite including myself, what have we done with power? We have failed the nation. So, we still need to be more patriotic, to view things from patriotic prism and sacrifice to move the nation forward.

The job Magu is supposed to do is a very delicate job, for him to accept to do the job, we should be able to see the patriotic spirit in him. Those who are of lesser integrity to Magu have occupied that position before and we know the mess they have made with that position. So if Magu is the rightful person to do it why don’t they go to their parliamentary caucus and resolve the differences. And if for whatever reasons, Magu is found culpable he can face the music.

*******But the Presidential Advisory Committee on Corruption led by Professor Itse Sagay has insisted that Magu can continue in office even in acting capacity. Don’t you think that this position is like confronting the Senate?

I don’t want to say that Senate is being confronted. Supposing the name of Magu has not been forwarded, he would have continued to act.

So Senate as an institution must be respected, I believe so and we should not say because of one issue or the other we bring down the institution of the Senate, but there must be decorum in whatever we are doing.

If Magu is rejected for the second time and there is nowhere in the constitution that says he cannot be re-presented and provided you are not calling him chairman, but addressed him as acting chairman until the contrary is done he remains the acting chairman.

And sometimes we make mistakes, any organisation is a pyramidal , everyone of us are gullible that we look at the apex all the time forgetting that the real power can reside at any level of pyramid. It could even be at the rock bottom base of the pyramid, so that exerting influence by all the personnel of the pyramid structure can come from anywhere.

So whether Magu is chairman or not, he can still function provided they have not found him culpable of any allegation. So if he is not the chairman today, it doesn’t mean he cannot function as a member of EFCC. And of course we have nearly 200 million people in this country , it is not only one Magu that we have among the 200 million people and so we can even have a better Magu at the apex and this contentious Magu can function in any capacity in the organisation without being called the chairman.

******The Senate also recently invited the Comptroller General of Customs, Col. Hameed Ali over certain policies of the Customs, but he was turned back when he appeared because the senators said he failed to appear in Customs’ uniform. Many Nigerians criticised the senators accusing them of chasing shadows while leaving the substance. How will you react to this accusation leveled against the senators as being unserious?

In the case of Col. Hameed Ali, we know he is not a customs officer. Like we are talking of the National Assembly as an institution that must not be destroyed, what is good for the goose is also good for the gander, the Customs as an institution must not be destroyed. And our leaders sometimes do a lot of things out of context.

If the Act establishing the Custom stipulates that the head of the organisation should be a Comptroller General, I am sure just anybody cannot be forced on the Army as GOC. If you are named as GOC, you are expected to adorn a General’s uniform which would be an illegality, impersonation if you are not a soldier of that rank.

Indirectly what they are asking Hameed Ali to do is to say come out and impersonate. So they have a lot of things buried underground, but the issue is, the Customs has become rotten and the President believes the Customs must be cleansed.

We were told that the previous Comptroller General generated two hundred and something billion naira but remitted less than 20 per cent, that was in a year. Under Ali, Customs generated about N903 billion and remitted the same amount under six months. Are we now saying we are looking for somebody who will not allow the nation to move forward for selfish reasons.

So if the man is performing, we can regard it as one of those aberrations that only the best is good for our nation and wherever we get the best we should use him for the benefit of the nation. By the same token, look at what is happening, the military wrongly made incursion into our polity in 1966, were they to be caught they were supposed to face firing squad.

They were supposed to be banned from holding public offices, but because they managed to scale through, they have been circulating and re-circulating themselves from 1966 to date, both in Khaki and Agbada, they are the ones still calling the shots. Despite the fact that they dropped their khaki and started to wear agbada their composition and make up have not been different.

So if for expediency, we tolerated them and somebody is now made Comptroller General without being a Customs man, the question is what have we been doing for the past two years when he was made the Comptroller General and we didn’t raise the issue of uniform.

******He was even screened and cleared by the senators
Why didn’t we raise this issue since, because it was convenient for us at that time. Now that we have dust being raised we now say, appear in uniform. Unless that is backed up by the law, it will be an illegality for him to appear in Customs’ uniform except it is going to be a ceremonial uniform and even that must be backed up by the law.

Like I said about parliamentary caucus meeting, the issue can be resolved and we will go through this, stop unnecessary distraction in the polity.

If it is a different party that controls the government and another one controlling the National Assembly it will be a different case, but in this case it is the same party. So I don’t see any reason why we could not have done our home work resolving the issue of Magu and that of Hameed Ali before taking it to the Senate so that the job will be easier for Mr. President.

******Who do we blame for this, is it the party leadership or the presidency or the Senate leadership?
All of them, even the party members, this is because if they are not doing what they are supposed to do or what is right, why is it that we didn’t talk the truth to them. And that is what led us to the issue of this is what is right and is not being taken up. If we keep talking in the inner caucus and powers that be is not listening that is why somebody like el-Rufai is now writing letter and making it public and some people are crying about the letter.

****** Are you satisfied with the performance of the current senators and how will you compare them to your set , the 7th Senate?
That will be unfair if you want me to compare the 7th Senate and the 8th Senate, it is the people that should judge between the two sets. If you like it is allowed in socio circle espirit de corps.

Whether Nigerians like it or not, once a senator is always a senator. We can criticise ourselves, we can make comparison but in a political circle like this let others who are the beneficiaries do the assessment and pass the judgement to satisfy themselves.

And in any event, what you see in the 7th Senate and 8th Senate may be different from what others are seeing, so opinion may be divided. But I want to say I am proud to be a member of the 7th Senate. Notwithstanding the various shortcomings, we did our best. And the current senators are just almost two years in office and it will be unfair to them, we should allow their four years to elapse before doing a comparison.

******There was this ethnic clash in Ile-Ife between the Yoruba and the Hausa communities. Some arrests were made by the Police in connection with the crisis and there were complaints by some Yoruba leaders that only Yorubas were arrested. How will you react to that. Then how do we prevent re-occurrence of such crisis in other Yoruba towns and cities?
There is a common adage that says a stitch in time saves nine. I wouldn’t want to comment on the issue because it is already in the law court and we should not pre-empt the law court.

But beyond that, we should also know that the law enforcement agencies have responsibility. The area I am looking at is this, if a person is abused and those concerned don’t have the courtesy of going to the police because they lack confidence in the police or because they don’t trust them at all, then what is the problem with the police that they could not see a brewing problem and nip it in the bud before it snowballed into large fracas or into another carnage that took so many lives.

Our security agencies need to be up and doing, then we Nigerians we need to temper our temperance. That you are provoked doesn’t mean you must take law into your hands. And if you have the fear of God when it involves human being or any living thing, they are a creation of God. If you have the fear of God, you will be so cautious that you don’t terminate lives unjustly.

What happened there is disgraceful, it is totally disturbing. I have read a lot of things and in between them you will have the truth. whether you like it or not, it is not possible for people to willingly destroy their own properties, some people would have done it, it takes two to tango.

If it is true that only one section is being arrested and are on trial, the security agencies should live up to expectation by bringing all combatants together and anyone found culpable should be dealt with according to the law, but there should be no sign of bias whether ethnic or whatsoever, so that the fragile peace we are currently enjoying is not thrown overboard.