Magu’s Nomination Rejection and Power Play
Ideally, the Constitution of the Federal Republic gives each Arm of the Government power to exercise. The Legislative powers are versed and it is also vice-versa. The Senate reserved the power to screen and clear any nominee of the Executive. The Executive can nominate any candidate it feels capable and competent to handle and delivers the assignment he/she is penciled down for but the Legislative [Senate] cannot nominate or dictate to the Executive. The Executive reserves the power to determine who it deems fit for the would-be position and not by the whims and caprices of the Legislature [Senate].
The refusal of the Senate to clear the Acting Chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Ibrahim Magu is not based on any genuine reports generated by the Department of State Security, DSS per se as the Senate fed the public with. There is more to meeting the eyes than the stories the Senate is being bandied around that their decision not to confirm Magu was based on the DSS reports indicting Magu. Nigerians are not morons and gullible as the Senate thought. We are reading in-between the lines and know the mindset of the Senate on the candidature of Magu.
The question we should ask the Senate is, did the Executive not conduct security checks on Magu before it forwarded his name to the Senate? Who authored the reports that Senate is relying on better than the reports the Executive has? What the Senate pretends not to know, is that, their refusal to clear Magu has nothing to do with the Executive nominee for that position but it is jittery that, many of the senators may end up behind the bars when Magu nomination is confirmed.
Nigerians know likewise the Senators themselves that many of the senators that seek refuge and sojourn in the hallow chamber of the Senate have cases to answer in their respective States where they governed at one time or the other as a Governor where they ravaged and looted their States treasury. To scot free, they resulted at seeking election into the State. They know the fate that will befall many of them immediately Magu is confirmed as a substantive Chairman of EFCC, many of them may not see the light of the day again but spend the rest of this year if not more in the EFCC gulag like some of their colleagues who are cooling off their heels in prison. Every day is for the thieves and one day is for the owners. When we got to the bridge will cross it sooner than the Senate expect. The Senate is jittery and panic that, Magu may be that ‘mad dog’ that will bark and bite once his nomination is expeditiously confirmed that is why the Senate is using him as a bait against the confirmation of other nominees of the Presidency.
It is not the Senate that coerce the Executive to appoint whom they prefer as a toddler Chairman of the anti-graft Agency. They can only delay the day of reckoning but not preventing it from happening. The Nigerian democracy is getting stronger. It will soonest gotten to a point where the candidacy of any former governor will be rejected out rightly either at the primary or at the poll by the voters because we are tired of the looters who wanted to continue looting and enslave the rest of us perpetually. Many have left their States in ruinous while the hues and cries continue by the vast majority of the populace. Many of them the former governors sojourning in the Chambers are stupendously rich that their great grand children cannot finish what their grand fathers have stolen except their squanderers. This life is not meant for one person but that is what our so-called democrat Senators want. Many of them cannot go to their home towns let alone the State they governed with iron fist while they lasted in the office. Now, they are recounting and licking their wounds.
It is not about confirming Magu as the substantive Chairman of EFCC but have an institution that is strong and not a nominee doing the bidding of the few at the expense of the majority. Those Senators that are not governors joining the bad wagons effects under the guise of defending the Senate as some of them also nursing the ambition of becoming Governor in their respective States either in 2019 or some years to come. So, it is better they join hand to destroy an institution now rather than making EFCC stronger. So, it is not about Ibrahim Magu as a person but the fear of unknown what will befall the corrupt Senators in the hallow chamber of the Senate. Nigerians are getting wiser and we await many of them at the poll.
If they party hierarchy or institution is strong, the ruling party, All Progressives Congress, APC would have resolve the issue of Magu’s nomination but this is how the lawmakers want the party structure to be and remain a toothless leadership that cannot summon and wedge a strong or big stick against any erring member of the party. Nigerians reject the position of the Senate with a flimsy excuse of DSS reports indicting Magu. If Magu has done anything wrong, who should know better? The Senate or the Executive that nominated him if not because that the Senators have some skeletons in their cupboards that they know Magu will expose and deal with each of them ruthlessly. If they say no, let them confirm his nomination and see if many of them will not be confined to prisons of long term.
Koleoso Adelowo contributes this piece from Airport road, Abuja.
