President Muhammadu Buhari reserves the right to nominate anyone for any post, and to stick with his nominees even when they are at first rejected by the Senate. In exercising this right, the president last week asked the Senate to reconsider its decision not to confirm the nominee for the post of Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu. Now re-designated as acting chairman, Mr Magu, as this column wrote when he was first turned down, deserves a reconsideration on account of his assiduousness, passion and even efficiency, notwithstanding his sometimes abrasive and unsophisticated approach to the job. The important point is that since the days of the former chairman, Nuhu Ribadu, no one has done the job with as much commitment, if not suicidal zeal. And in any case, those on whom Mr Magu is expected to train his anti-graft guns, are themselves uncouth, ruthless and unconscionable.
All things considered, therefore, it is not surprising that President Buhari is sticking to Mr Magu. Last week’s presidential remonstrance to the Senate may be lacking in finesse and logic, not to say administrative acumen, but there are indications he may just pull it off. The plot against the EFCC boss, it was clear from the beginning, was never profound, never strictly legal, and never quite legislatively moral. Had the antagonism against Mr Magu rested purely on his work, especially the content of his ideas, perhaps he could be exposed as lacking in a structured approach to the work, and shown to be all sound and fury. Instead, at the point of his denunciation, when Mr Magu seemed to have united his enemies against himself, it was obvious that the plot reeked of a conspiracy between fulminating members of the president’s kitchen cabinet and many cynical lawmakers seized by either fear or loathing.
But in sticking with Mr Magu, the president once again illustrated sharply the confusion and amateurishness that pervade the presidency. In the letter sent to the Senate and read by its president, Bukola Saraki, President Buhari clearly glossed over the anomalous manner the secret service undermined his appointee. It is true that institutions ought to be free to do their work, especially when that work promotes and undergirds the constitution. But in respect of Mr Magu’s nomination, that work ought to have been done silently and behind closed doors. That work ought to have helped the president to come to a clean and clear decision on who his nominee would be. However, the secret service did its job in such a manner that it seemed to have served as a counterpoise to the president’s decision and a reflection of the disharmony that has crept into the inner workings of the presidency.
What the public expected of the president in his letter to the Senate was to address the secret service’s report frontally, get the agency to formally withdraw the report it earlier forwarded to the Senate, and plausibly defend its volte face on the grounds of superior information, not executive pressure. It has sadly taken the Senate to point out this elementary fact to the public and the presidency. The presidency may already be lobbying the Senate to approve Mr Magu’s appointment, but there is no way both the presidency and the Senate would not need to first resolve the matter of the secret service’s unfavourable report on Mr Magu. They can’t sweep it under the carpet.
The chaotic workings of the presidency manifested even more vividly in the subterranean clearance unilaterally granted the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir David Lawal. Not only were the allegations levelled against him in the Senate referred by the presidency to the wrong persons for investigation, even the exoneration itself bore the hallmarks of tameness and favouritism. It is possible Mr David Lawal is innocent of the accusations and suppositions levelled against him; but those who probed him, including the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, did nothing to clear the SGF of wrongdoing. For, at the centre of the whole brouhaha is the issue of conflict of interest, not whether he had resigned or not from the companies that secured the contract from the ad hoc agency under his supervision.
It is not clear how the Senate would react to the SGF matter. They will probably resist all blandishments the presidency might bring, even if the executive arm manages to win the support of Senator Saraki. It will therefore require inordinate pressure to save him, the kind of pressure that comes with horrendous and costly compromises, the kind of pressure President Buhari by his personal constitution and aloofness and inner solitude is poorly equipped to give. The whole world, figuratively speaking, supports Mr Magu. The initial resolve of the Senate to reject his nomination may therefore be unable to withstand the pressure that will be brought to bear when eventually the anti-graft boss is presented for screening. Indeed, what is at stake here is not so much whether the Senate finally does the president’s bidding concerning Mr Magu and Mr David Lawal, but the obvious and frustrating fact that the presidency does appear to walk with unsteady gait, reeling from one faux pas to another, unsure whether its modest accomplishments so far have not been the fortuitous outcome of kindergarten application of policies and ideas.
Credit: Idowu Akinlotan, The Nation