Consequent upon the refusal of the Senate to confirm Mr Ibrahim Magu as the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the Red Chamber has been criticized for attempting to frustrate the war against corruption being waged by the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.

Head of Transparency International (Nigeria), Auwal Ibrahim Rafsanjani, made this assertion in an exclusive interview with LEADERSHIP Friday.

According to him, the Senate has been trying to scuttle the anti-corruption war of the incumbent administration since it started making moves to overhaul the Code of Conduct Act just because the Senate president, Bukola Saraki, was standing trial for not properly declaring his assets while he was the governor of Kwara State.

Rafsanjani, who is also the chairman, Board of Amnesty International (Nigeria), asserted that that the Senate is trying to stop the confirmation of Magu so as to weaken his resolve to do a thorough job of reducing corruption in the country.

He said: “Because there is an attempt to undermine the anti-corruption stance of the present administration by the Senate, which tried to change the Code of Conduct Act to favour the Senate President in the ongoing case against him, some allude that rejecting Magu is also part of this attempt to dampen the morale of the EFCC.

“Everybody in this country knows that, in the last one year, the EFCC has become more active, more professional and more assertive in terms of dealing with people who are associated with corruption or people who have looted the country. The amount of money that has been recovered, the amount of confession and testimony that people have given to the EFCC on the role they played in looting the country, had never been recorded before.

“And there were people that were untouchable before, but under one year of Buhari’s government, they have been arrested, investigated and they returned money. So, this is something that has not happened before. Obviously there are people who are not happy with the anti-corruption stance of this government, so they want to make sure they weaken the morale and spirit of people (like Magu) that are making this to happen,” he said.

Rafsanjani, who lamented that the anti-corruption agencies in the country are being starved, emphasized that “they are not being given the technical, financial and moral support that would enable them to do their work in the best way possible.

He accused the lawmakers of reducing the entire confirmation exercise to ridicule, even as he carpeted the Department of State Services (DSS), whose report was used as an excuse to stop Magu’s clearance by the Senate.

“There is no concerted effort to harmonise disparate information. Ideally, a security report clearing or indicting a nominee should have been made available to the president. But in this case, we have seen contradictions. Even though we have not yet got any authoritative or official report released by the SSS, which claimed it submitted the report to the National Assembly, we have not seen anybody from the SSS come to debunk or confirm the originality of that report.

“It shows you that there is a problem, because the president should have gotten this report before sending the name of his nominee to the National Assembly, because had (Magu) had any problem, the president would not have submitted his name.

“If it is true that it is the SSS that sent that report to the National Assembly, it shows lack of respect to the office of the president. It shows that there is an attempt to undermine the president’s integrity in the whole process. This is really not good for the country. And from the National Assembly’s part, what has transpired indicates that it (the National Assembly) didn’t show any iota of transparency in the process because the confirmation is not done by a sub-committee. It is supposed to be by the whole red chamber.

“The fact that they were not able to arrive at the fact of accepting or rejecting him (Magu); and a committee went into caucus only to come out and announce that he is not going to be confirmed shows lack of transparency in the legislative process.

“On all other nominees, we have seen how the Senate debated and took collective resolutions on the foor of the Senate. In the case of Magu, no such thing was done,” he said.

Rafsanjani, who also doubles as the acting general secretary, West African Civil Society Forum (WACSOF) and the executive director, Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Center (CISLAC), added that: “If you have a serious government that takes its position against corruption seriously, it will be extremely difficult for the National Assembly to play the game they are playing, especially when it is the same party, the ruling party, which has the majority in the parliament.

“This shows that there is a total lack of coherence and coordination in the manner in which governance is carried out in Nigeria. So, it is the advocacy of Transparency International (Nigeria) to see that Nigerian government becomes more efficient, more executive, more active to deal with all the issues that will make government structures workable and working.

“It is very clear that the Nigerian government is not in charge of its agencies and information because, ordinarily, the president is in charge of the security sector. So, if there is any report indicting anybody or any nominee of Mr President, the security should have alerted him before he sent such a person’s name to the National Assembly for confirmation.

“But because of lack coherence and adherence to due process in the information now, you could see how the president and the presidency had been terribly disgraced by the action that we have seen.”

Meanwhile, former president of the Nigerian Bar Association, Mr Joseph B. Daudu (SAN) has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to look for better Nigerians to run EFCC.

Addressing a news conference in Abuja, Daudu, who is also the chairman of the African Bar Association (ABA), said President Buhari must consider the Magu experience as a ‘failure’ and treat the file as closed.

“There is no doubt that the appointment of EFCC chairman is not only within the purview of the president but subject to the confirmation of the Senate. What this means is that the rejection by the Senate of the nomination of Magu automatically ends his role within the EFCC.

“His formal nomination to the office of chairman of the EFCC automatically nullified his position as acting chairman of the same immediately he was rejected as a nominee for the chairmanship. Consequently, the sojourn of Magu at the EFCC has come to an end,” Daudu said.

Daudu represented Senate president, Bukola Saraki, at the CCT trial.

According to him, there is no principle of law that empowers the president to retain Magu in an acting capacity in the face of his rejection by the legislature.

“This is because it is the constitution that gave the legislature the power to confirm the candidacy of Magu that gave the president the power to nominate him as chairman of EFCC. One arm of government cannot dictate supremacy to the other as that will amount to a brazen infraction of the Constitution,” he said.L

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