Chidi Okereke
Yesterday, the Nigerian Senate screened Ibrahim Magu and ultimately rejected his nomination as chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.
Recall that last year, President Muhammadu Buhari nominated Magu as the Chairman of the EFCC, but the senate rejected him, citing a report from the Department of State Services, DSS. In spite of the report, the President resubmitted Magu’s name for screening in January this year, and after plenty back and forths, the rejection screening happened.
Now, the question is, why are the senators rejecting Magu? We have done some investigation and these could be the reasons:
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The DSS report
The first time Magu was nominated, the SSS sent the senate a report that accused the acting chairman of high-handedness and alleged involvement in some corrupt practices. Maybe the senators do not want to clear him because of the accusations. But then, one wonders how credible the SSS is, seeing that they dispatched two reports on him with varying contents on the same day – one approving his nomination and another asking that he be rejected. Hmmmm.
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Fear
There are corruption charges/allegations against many of the senators, some of them ex governors, including the Senate President himself; and Magu plans to investigate them. This may just be the Senators’ way of preventing that from happening. I mean, if you know that someone is going to expose and send you to jail, will you empower him/her to?
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His incompetence
At the screening, Magu answered personal questions about himself to the satisfaction of the Senators, but when he was asked how much had been recovered during his tenure as Acting Chairman of the EFCC, baba could not respond coherently. All politics aside, that is an enormous display of incompetence and as far as we are concerned, enough reason for the senate to NOT confirm him as Chairman.
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Battle of supremacy between the Senate and the Presidency
Ever since Bukola Saraki hijacked the Senate from the APC/Presidency, there has been friction between both arms of government. From refusing to pass the budget to rejecting the president’s loan request, it has been a power tussle between the Red Chamber and Aso Rock. This may just be another one of those supremacy battles. We observe
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Internal conflicts within presidency
The president nominated Magu, but the SSS (which is an arm of the presidency) wrote the report indicting Magu. This is a classic case of brothers fighting in the other room, while the father ignores them. The exact cause of this internal conflict could be the beef between the NSA and the DG of the SSS, but it may be something else we don’t know. Fact remains that there are internal conflicts within the presidency, and we are watching.
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President Buhari’s Chess move
Considering number 5, this may just be a brilliant move by the President. We just do not know what the move is, or how it is brilliant. But seeing as the president basically runs the SSS that is writing damning things about the candidate the president selected for the EFCC chairmanship, we can only assume that Baba Bubu is playing an advance level game of chess that is too complicated for us mere mortals. Ride on Grandmaster Gary Buhari Kasparov. Wehdone sir
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Confusion
This may just be the typical confusion and cluelessness that every successive Nigerian government displays as soon as they get into power. Because, we cannot explain again.
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Distraction
The Dollar keeps rising, falling, rising; Nigeria has been listed as one of four countries contributing to the worst ever famine since the UN was created; the economy is not getting any better; Coca Cola is trying to poison us; and so on. But you know what the political ‘analysts’ have been discussing…? The conundrum surrounding the rejection of the president’s EFCC chairmanship nominee by the senate, based on a report by the SSS – an arm of the presidency.
In simple words, they are trying to distract us from the real issues. Stay woke guys.
