John Alechenu, Abuja

Effort by the All Progressives Congress to broker peace between the executive and the legislature over their disagreement on the sacking of the Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ibrahim Magu, has ended in a stalemate, The PUNCH has learnt.

The latest in the series of meetings, which began last week, was held at the Presidential Villa late on Sunday.



It was gathered that the party leadership, at the end of the latest meeting, could not convince the executive and the Senate to change their positions on Magu.

Osinbajo had, in an interview in April, ruled out the possibility of Buhari replacing Magu, whose nomination was rejected by the Senate twice.

He had argued that the confirmation of the Senate was not necessary for Magu to function as head of the EFCC.

The acting President’s statement drew the ire of senators, who, on Tuesday last week decided to withhold all requests for confirmation from the Presidency.

The PUNCH had exclusively reported on Monday that the party leaders had met with Acting President Yemi Osinbajo and Senate President Bukola Saraki separately over the disagreement on Magu’s confirmation.

A top member of the party, who confided in our correspondent on Thursday, said a solution had not been found to the face-off.

The source, who attended the meeting, stated, “We are between the devil and the deep blue sea. Consultations and discussions are still ongoing. We were not consulted at the beginning and this thing was allowed to degenerate to this level.

“What we are doing is damage control. We had to intervene instead of waiting to be left with offering explanations for something we know nothing about.”

The source added that the Acting President and his boss, President Muhammadu Buhari, who is currently away in the United Kingdom on medical vacation, were on the same page on the issue of Magu.

He said, “The matter is still on. What is happening is that the Acting President, who is fiercely loyal to his boss, does not want to do anything to betray that trust. The last time he spoke to the boss, the boss wanted Magu and as a lawyer, he does everything to protect his client that is his attitude.”

The source explained that the senators argued that once Magu was disqualified by the Senate, he was not qualified to act as the EFCC chairman.

“They are insisting that in the real sense, not only the EFCC chairman, any public officer that is subject to Senate confirmation, what disqualifies his confirmation by the Senate automatically disqualifies him from acting in that capacity,” the source said.

According to him, the Senators also argued that the executive had so far failed to lobby the legislature as it is done in all civilised democracies across the globe.

The source stated, “In any democracy in the world, lobbying is allowed. You lobby the legislature, you lobby members of parliament.

“In this case, the Department of State Services was supposed to have sent its security report to the President, but it didn’t do that; it sent it directly to the Senate. This never happens anywhere.”

The source recalled that a similar scenario played out during the former President Olusegun Obasanjo era.

He explained that the then President sent a nominee from one of the northern states for confirmation but the then DG SSS, (Col. Kayode Are (retd.), sent an unsolicited damning security report to the then Senate President, Senator Ken Nnamani.

Obasanjo was said to be unaware of the report.

The then Senate subsequently decided to ignore the security report and went ahead to confirm the nominee.

The source recalled that senators at that time argued that the report ought to have been sent to the President to decide whether or not to go ahead with the nomination.

According to him, since the issue of nomination is the prerogative of the President, he ought to have been the one to decide whether or not to attach the report to his letter nominating anyone for confirmation.

He said that it was considered an act capable of undermining the President’s authority for the SSS, at the time, to forward such a report directly to the Senate behind the Commander-In-Chief.

The Senate, under David Mark, also ignored a so-called security report on Brig. Gen. Buba Marwa (retd.) and the late Mr. Polycap Nwite to confirm them as ambassadors.

The source added, “In Magu’s case, the President (Buhari) was embarrassed that there was such a report from the DSS which was sent to the Senate without his knowledge but he did nothing.

“The Senate is now capitalizing on this. Now the bigger problem we are having is that every corrupt and potentially corrupt person in this country wants Magu out. What do we do?

“Who is more powerful? Is it the Presidency of the corrupt cabal? The corrupt cabal is more powerful because the corrupt cabal is using the Senate to shut down government. That brings us to a point where we can now say, is it worth all the trouble?

“That is the dilemma. We are talking, but we want the Acting President to get in touch with his principal to see if he can find an alternative.

“If this happens, we are faced with another perception problem; it means corruption is winning. For us to be seen as a government that bows to corruption will not be good for this nation.

When contacted, the APC National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, said, “A lot of work is going on that is what one can say now. A lot of people are doing a lot of good work to cool down the polity. It is not what we want to trumpet yet but I can assure you the results will soon be evident.”

Also, the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, while expressing a personal opinion in a telephone interview with The PUNCH, explained that the issues at stake provided an opportunity for judiciary to help deepen democracy.

“For me, I would like to look at the positive side and the positive side is that the more of this type of situation we have, the more the opportunity we have to test our constitution,” Abdullahi stated


http://punchng.com/magu-apcs-intervention-in-presidency-nassembly-feud-deadlocked/

APC , the most disorganise political party have ever heard. there source is there issue. merger of the northern party(ANPP) and western party(ACN)

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To be sincere whenever I read anything concerning Senate I get weak because they have believed they are above everything. Senate! Senate! Senate!

This is going to be a long drawn battle
It is very unlikely for the Executive to shift ground on Magu in order not to be seen as weak, and being bullied by the Legislature.

The Senate, will likely sing their favourite chorus of legislative independence and how the Executive is trying to flush that in the toilet.
The impeachment threat will likely continue if the Executive is unwilling to shift grounds on Magu, as most Senators have one or two issues to settle with Magu. They see him as very arrogant, too combustible to compromise on him, and more dangerously, compromise will make them appear unserious, weak, time wasters and a surrender of their power to whip the Executive in line.

In all this, I blame the APC for allowing things to degenerate to this level. The party started a fire that they cannot control the burn. This present move is rather late. It's like trying to stop Judas from doing his job.

Secondly, Osinbajo was careless to have made the comment whether the senate is not needed to confirm Magu. This statement is arguable but spiteful. Relying on Femi Falana to make such statement who is well known for speaking from both sides of his mouth is not well calculated, and not political. Osinbajo should see himself now as more of a politician than a lawyer if he is to grow in politics.

Lastly, the whole trouble was avoidable if our politicians had played according to the rules, and with principles

Once you remove magu, we are going back to the Egypt where we have been for ages without improvement



Magu is one of the major weapons with which the war against corruption is physically fought


We know our real enemies of progress but tribalism, religion and stupidly is making us blame the innocent ones

I see corruption winning this war. Its really sad