Presidency awaits Senate’s communication
By Abdullahi M.Gulloma
with Agency
By allowing the Department of State Service to undermine his quest to make Ibrahim Magu substantive chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), President Muhammadu Buhari has lost control of his government and should consider overhauling his administration forthwith; two former Nigerian leaders have told Premium Times.
This is coming as the Presidency says it is awaiting a formal communication from the Senate on its decision to reject Magu as nominee for the EFCC top job.
Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, stated this on his Twitter handle yesterday.
According to the presidential aide, the presidency will respond to Magu’s disqualification if it receives official communication in writing from the Senate.
“The Presidency will respond to the non-clearance of Magu as EFCC boss, after it receives official communication in writing from the Senate,’’ he tweeted. But in separate interviews with Premium Times on Wednesday, two former Commanders-in-Chief, who spoke on strict anonymity, said Buhari should be very worried about the direction his administration was headed.
“I strongly reject the notion that Buhari is helpless in his own cabinet,” one of the former leaders said.
“I would never have allowed such humiliating insubordination in my administration. It was unthinkable that my own appointee would oppose my nominee at the National Assembly. No one could have tried that with me. He or she would have paid dearly for it. What happened showed clearly that Buhari is not in charge.”
The second official said what happened in the Magu case was “entirely inconceivable in a presidential system anywhere in the world.”
In a painful effort to make sense of the development and convey his “rude shock”, the former leader said Buhari might actually be the one behind the “repeated humiliation of his own nominee.”
“Unless he is the one behind the whole controversy by deliberately double-dealing with his own nominee and other subordinates, there’s no way I would have thought a situation like this will play out as someone who had been privileged to hold that position.
“As far as I am concerned, things seem to have fallen apart. It is also possible that he has never been in control. It is very unfortunate.”
Weighing in further on the controversy, one of the former leaders said, the intrigues were a clear indication the president had lost grip of his government.
“For me, it’s clearly disrespectful,” another former commander-in-chief said.
“His (Buhari’s) appointees are hostile towards him and I think that’s not something we see regularly in governments across the world.”
The former leader said “not a single one” of his appointees ever made any attempt that could “remotely be deemed an act of insubordination.”
“Never did any of my appointees even tried to override a decision that had been concluded.”
One of the leaders recommended that heads should roll if Buhari must regain control of his government.
“I will recommend an urgent cabinet shake-up if there’s a way he could go about that before it’s too late,” the former leader said.
“That’s about the most important decision to take after today.”
The comments came hours after Magu, Buhari’s preferred nominee for the EFCC top job, was rejected for the second time in three months by the Senate.
The senators hinged their decision on a security report authored by the Department of State Service, which portrayed Magu as “a liability to the anti-corruption stance” of the Buhari administration.
The disparaging document was produced by the DSS despite President Buhari’s public posturing to get Magu cleared.
It will be recalled that Blueprint had exclusively reported on June 24, 2016, that an intense power play among top appointees of President Muhammadu Buhari, “is threatening the administration’s anti-corruption agenda, as longstanding cold war among agencies central to the fight, goes full blown, Blueprint can authoritatively reveal.
We also reported that some top aides of the president were locked in power tussle and fighting ‘dirty’ over the modus operandi as well as strategies of prosecuting the anti-graft war, thus leading to a sharp division among top echelons in the Presidency.
Blueprint’s findings then revealed that the Chief of Staff to the President, Malam Abba Kyari, the National Security Adviser, Major-General Babagana Monguno (retd), the Director General, Department of State Services (DSS), Lawal Daura, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), and the acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu, were at the centre of the row.
