Vice
President Yemi Osinbajo, speaking with news men yesterday stated that he and
President Buhari are fully in support of
the acting Chairman of EFCC, Ibrahim
Magu. According to Him, President Buhari has not called for
Magu's replacement because he doesn't find the DSS report which indicted him of
some wrongdoings, enough reason to do so.
Sometime last month, the senate rejected Magu's nomination as EFCC Chairman on the basis of the DSS report that accused Magu of corruption and living a lifestyle that is above his means. VP Osinbajo in the interview said Magu can be re-presented to the senate for screening and confirmation.
“We should commend the president for not interfering with what the DSS
said. The DSS came up with a report and the man who was accused refuted it. He
explains and gives a reason. When that happened, the president looked at what
Magu said and what the DSS wrote and he said ‘I am satisfied with what Magu
said. He then decided to retain Magu as the nominee for EFCC. I don’t see any
reason why that should be contested. The president has not interfered with what
the DSS said. If he wanted to interfere, he would have ordered the DSS to keep
quiet. He didn’t do that, but he said ‘I don’t think the DSS report is
meritorious enough to withdraw his nomination. The president reserves the right
to say, ‘this is who I want’. I’m fully in support of Magu as the EFCC chairman
just as the president is. It is up to the senate to make their judgement, and
it is up to us say what we want to do. If our candidate is rejected, we can
rep-resent him. No law says we can’t rep-resent him. And again, there is the
other argument, whether or not we need to present him for confirmation and
that’s a compelling argument from Femi Falana. His argument is that under the
constitution, section 171, and if you look at that section, it talks about the
appointments that the president can make. They include appointments of
ministers, ambassadors and heads of agencies such as the EFCC. In that same
section 171, the constitution rightly said that certain appointments must go to
the senate such as ministerial and ambassadorial appointments. Those of heads
of agencies like the EFCC do not have to go to the senate. That’s what the
constitution says. But the EFCC act, which of course as you know is inferior,
says that EFCC chairman should go to the senate for confirmation. I am sure
that even a pocket book lawyer knows that when a legislation conflicts with
constitution, it’s the constitution that prevails. I agree with Mr Falana that
there was no need in the first place to have sent Magu’s name to the senate,
but we did so and it was rejected by the senate, but I believe that it can be
rep-resented. I don’t think there is anything wrong about the fact that senate
has rejected him. Senate has acted in its own wisdom to say ‘No, we don’t want
him’, and we can say, ‘This is our candidate… we like the gentleman and we want
him to continue.” he said
