Senate halts REC screening, says Magu must go (Updated)

The Senate on Tuesday refused to go ahead with the process of confirmation of the 27 persons sent to it by President Muhammadu Buhari as INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC).

The move is in protest over the refusal of the president to sack the acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Ibrahim Magu.

The Senate has on two occasions turned down the request of Presdeint Buhari to confirm Magu as the substantial chairman of the anti-graft agency, citing a report from the DSS.

The lawmakers called on President Buhari, to respect the outcome of their decision on the rejection of Magu.

Failure to take heed, the Senate has vowed that it will not consider or confirm the 27 names of RECs, sent to it last week by the President.

Magu was rejected on December 15, 2016. The Red Chamber, while announcing the rejection then, also hinged its reason on the same DSS report which was sent to it in October of 2016.

The Senate, at plenary on Tuesday, said it was wrong of the President to continue to keep Magu in an acting capacity, despite its decision that he should be out rightly replaced.

Adopting a motion sponsored by Peter Nwaoboshi from Delta State, the Senate directed its President, Bukola Saraki, to within two weeks, convey its position about the non-replacement of Magu to Buhari and report back to allow it take further legislative actions on the matter.

Deputy Senate Leader, Bala Ibn Na’Allah, had in a separate motion urged the Senate to consider the nomination of the REC nominees, in accordance with sections 14 (3)(a) of the Third Schedule of the constitution, as amended.

But in a display of anger, Senators rose in total disagreement with Na’Allah’s suggestion and asked that the nominations be outrightly rejected.

Nwaoboshi in his argument, drew the attention of his colleagues to what he called the disgraceful manner in which Senate’s decision against Magu is being treated by the President.

He specifically expressed disappointment with remarks made by the chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Anti-Corruption, Professor Itse Sagay, to the effect that the President could ignore the decision of the Senate on Magu and continue to keep him in an acting capacity.

He suggested that the REC nominees be sent back to the President.

He said: “Recently in this Senate, we dealt with the issue of confirmation and where are we today? The Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Anti-corruption, Prof. Itse Sagay went to the press and said that the Senate merely confirms.

“This is not expected of somebody who had lectured constitutional law in the university and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and of course a chairman of such a big body to say that the legislature merely confirms and that the legislature has no power.

“Here are we again, being given a list to confirm and we will merely confirm. Look at the list here. We have eight of them here out of 27 that are for reappointment. That means they are acting already. They are already working. Prof. Sagay will state again Section 171 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria even if we do not confirm them. He will say they should continue to fight. They are telling Mr President to disregard and disrespect the institution of the legislature.

“Let us not take such a precedence. We cannot destroy our democracy because certain persons feel that it is only their belief or what they want that will happen in this country. This country does not belong to them. This country belongs to the Nigerian people. The Nigerian people have elected us. They have given the power to look into those names sent to us for confirmation and to look into their credentials.

“We could have ignored it, but for somebody of that status, we will not. My position on this matter is that since our confirmation is merely, let us suspend it until we know whether we have the power as given to us by the constitution to look into confirmation matters or any other status.”

Senator Nwaoboshi was supported by Matthew Urhoghide from Edo State. In his contribution, he said since President Buhari knows that he is unwilling to respect the decision of the Senate, he should stop sending names to it for confirmation.

He thundered: “The Act establishing these agencies of government has specified clearly that these officers of these agencies whose appointments will be made by Mr President have to be confirmed by the Senate. We are only performing our statutory role and if by chance, Mr President sends a name to the Senate for confirmation and they are not confirmed, what happens is that the President is at liberty to send another name.

“But it must be that the Senate too must be properly informed of what has happened to confirmations, either the one that has been upheld or the one that has been turned down by the Senate. We deserve the right to know.

“We cannot keep confirming names or turning down names of nominees of Mr President only for them to be put in basket. These persons cannot keep acting even when we have turned them down because as it is now, they are acting and their names have been sent in for confirmation and we do not know what has happened in the case of the EFCC.

“Specifically speaking, is he acting today? If the President knew that he was not going to honour our refusal or rejection of his nominee, he should not have sent his name in the first place which would have meant an outright violation of the law establishing EFCC and of course the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, as amended.”

Senator Adamu Aliero, disagreed sharply with the positions of the Nwaoboshi and Urhoghide. He urged his colleagues to look beyond the failings of the executive and confirm the nominees in the interest of the forthcoming general elections.

“I rise to oppose what my two colleagues have just said for the reason that there is already an impression that is created, particularly by the media, that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is not ready for the conduct of 2019 election and 2019 election is very crucial to us.

“The preparation and the conduct of the 2019 election is the submission of RECs to the Senate for screening and approval. Without that, INEC will never be ready for the 2019 elections, even though what they said is true, I want to ask exceptionally that we consider the screening of this list and if there is any observation on any nominee, he should be done at the screening stage.

“I will want to respectfully say that some of the nominees that are set to be on reappointment, they have already left the office and they have served their term for 4 years.”

Again, the Deputy Chief Whip, Senator Francis Alimikhena, opposed Senator Aliero’s position. He accused the acting chairman of EFCC, Mr Magu of being behind recent media attacks against the Senate.

He said: “I beg to differ from the suggestion of my colleague, Senator Aliero. It is better to do something and do it well. All these nominees reappointed and new appointments, what if we refuse, what will happen? That is the question that the Senators are asking the executive. There is no need to disapprove one and he goes back to say you can continue to act.

“The EFCC chairman that we disqualified in this hall, is he acting? He is behind all the report against us in the media. Magu is terrorizing us because we disqualified him and we cannot hide it. We disqualified Magu and he is terrorizing our people because we disqualified him. He is still acting and they are still bringing in confirmation for us to confirm. If they know they can do it alone, let them do it.”

Another attempt by Senator Na’Allah to intervene, failed. Na’Allah in his remarks, noted: “I share the sentiments of my colleagues on this issue. I am in great difficulty to disagree with more convincing reasons as to why I think the Senate will thread cautiously on the request by my colleagues for us to stand down this. I think this matter is going to be referred to the committee. We still have enough time.”

It took the intervention of Saraki and his Deputy, Ike Ekweremadu to douse the tension in the Senate. Saraki, while pleading with his colleagues, urged them to exercise restraints. He said the confirmation exercise should be suspended for one week to enable him discuss with President Buhari.

Ekweremadu, also made a similar appeal to lawmakers. He however joined others in condemning President Buhari’s refusal to relief Magu of his position as acting chairman of EFCC.

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