Senate again rejects Magu as EFCC chairman

The Senate on Wednesday rejected for the second time the nomination of Ibrahim Magu as Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) amid allegations of corruption.
“By popular votes, the nomination of Acting Chairman of EFCC [Economic and Financial Crimes Commission] is hereby rejected,” Senate President Bukola Saraki said after a voice vote in parliament.
The upper chamber had last December refused to screen Magu based on a report by the country’s Department of State Security which claimed Magu did not pass an integrity test and that letting him head the agency constituted a threat to President Muhammadu Buhari’s corruption fight.
But Buhari brushed aside the report, tipping again the police officer for the job in January. The president told the parliament he had probed the findings of the report and found it largely untrue.
At the confirmation hearing in Abuja on Wednesday, senators took turns to puncture the record of Magu as acting chairman of the agency, including allegations of rights violations, noncompliance with court orders and corruption within the body itself – claims faulted by the nominee.
During the screening, Dino Melaye, senator representing Kogi west, referred his colleagues to the report and asked Magu: “Do you have the integrity to head the commission?
He then read the DSS report that nailed Magu: “Magu has failed integrity test and will constitute a liability to the anti-corruption drive of the present administration,” read the report the agency presented to the senate.
“With what I read this morning, I also have to inform you that every nominee who comes to this senate, we do request for screening from the DSS. It did not start with you, and it will not end with you.
“So it is at the premise of this request that we received this from the DSS, the Department of State Services is to us what the FBI and CIA is to the US, and we cannot ridicule, we cannot undermine, we cannot put to abeyance the report of the DSS.
“Anyone who wants to be chairman of the EFCC must be unblemished, must be pure, must be stainless… After this report, do you still see yourself qualified be the chairman of the EFCC or do we take you to Golgotha?”
Magu in his response said the Directorate of State Services (DSS) denied him the right to fair hearing. He said the DSS never invited him to hear his own side of the story. He also queried the integrity of the report, wondering why the DSS would have two varying reports on him.
“What does it mean if DSS submits two reports on the same person, the same day?”
He refuted the allegation that a corrupt businessman hired a mansion for him as contained in the report.
“The house I’m staying belongs to Dora Akunliyi, the son was looking for money to go back to the US and that was how we got the house,” he said.
“Government has such houses, they are safe houses. When the rent expires I will go back to Karu, I believe that everybody has a duty to fight corruption.
“There is a right to fair hearing, but up till now the DSS has not invited me to hear my own side. This is a constitutional issue.”
The senate subsequently rejected Magu.
In December, the upper legislative chamber also cited the DSS report as the reason for not confirming Magu’s appointment.
President Muhammadu Buhari appointed the anti-graft czar in November 2015 after Ibrahim Lamorde was sacked.