The Nigerian
Senate is an arm of government that must be respected in any decision it takes
in the course of exercising its powers as an independent institution, the
presidency said
Tuesday.
The comment
came in reaction to the decision of the upper legislative chamber to suspend
consideration of his nominees for Resident Electoral Commissioners in protest
against Ibrahim Magu’s continued stay in office as the acting chairman of the
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
The senators
had declined to confirm Mr. Magu as substantive chairman of the anti-graft
office after two requests by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The president
sent a list of 27 nominees to the Senate last week.
The senators
also protested alleged disrespect of the National Assembly by appointees of the
president.
The Senate has
been locked in prolonged supremacy battle with the Secretary to the Government
of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, and Comproller-General of Customs, Hameed
Ali.
Mr. Lawal and
Mr. Ali declined separate summons of the Senate last week, over issues bordering
on alleged corruption and non-compliance official dress code, respectively.
But speaking
in response to the lawmakers, President Buhari’s Senate liaison officer, Ita
Enang, said the administration will respect the decision of the lawmakers and
pursue dialogue with them.
“We will not
question the power of the senators to take decision on how they want to conduct
nomination hearings,” Mr. Enang told PREMIUM TIMES by telephone Tuesday
afternoon. “We will not go fighting with them”.
Instead, “we
will listen to their grievances and reason along with them,” Mr. Enang said
shortly after the Senate took the decision to protest Mr. Magu’s continued stay
in office.
He declined to
say if the president will now ask Mr. Magu to step aside, saying he will “not go
into specifics.”
Shortly after
rejecting Mr. Magu penultimate Wednesday, the senators urged the president to
relieve the EFCC chief of his job and name a temporary replacement pending
fresh nomination of a substantive chairman.
Today’s
development marked the second time in recent months that the Senate would move
to force the hands of the executive on national issues.
In November
2016, the senators threatened to boycott plenary to protest a prolonged delay
in conducting re-run elections in Rivers State.
The
Independent National Electoral Commission swiftly announced dates for the
elections, which held the following month.
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