By Dr. Ugoji Egbujo

A divided house will fall. But, this presidency must not fall. These shameful, debilitating, self–serving, internecine squabbles are one luxury this nation cannot afford.

The DSS and the EFCC are organs of the presidency. The presidency is cast in very bad light when it portrays itself as diffident and disorderly. The DSS laments that Ibrahim Magu does not have the integrity to be the chairman of the EFCC. And you would think that a Department of State Security should be the home of cold sober objectivity. The EFCC thinks the DSS is a jester. The Customs service agrees. The feud that has become a putrid sore has been to festering for too long. We had looked forward to the kind of discipline Buhari brought to insane places like the motor parks in 1984. But here we are. Chaos struts in Baba’s office. Baba, it appears, is no longer allergic to disorder.

Before the president appointed Magu to act as EFCC chairman, he reviewed security reports on him. Ochanja market women know Magu’s travails. So the president must know too. This president came to fight corruption and enthrone good governance. So he was expected to come clear-eyed about revamping the EFCC . Consequently, the choice of Magu must represent the president’s mission statement. The process of choosing the chairman of the EFCC must have been infinitely more rigorous than selecting a sports minister. But you have to like the new independence of the DSS. It is this very, supposedly, meticulous judgment that the DSS has taken easy liberty to declare, publicly, as terribly poor.

EFCC operatives

One reason officials are sometimes appointed in an acting capacity is to weigh definitively their practical suitability for a tenured job. Resumes can be hopelessly misleading. A president can be forgiven if an initial appointment is adjudged ill-advised. But a nomination for confirmation after the president has had a full year to assess an appointee’s performance, must be a measure of the president’s own competence. Good leaders are those who can appraise subordinates accurately. And given the importance of corruption and the agenda of this presidency, the choice of Magu cannot be a frivolous decision.

What has played out in the Senate, therefore, isn’t just disgraceful, it’s utterly bizarre. In nominating Magu to the Senate for confirmation, the president said, “on my honour, I have found this man fit, worthy and capable, to run the EFCC at this time.” Again, you must admire the boldness of the DSS. That attack on Magu’s integrity by the DSS is actually an open insolent chastisement of the president.

The president kept his cool. The average African father cannot tolerate a public desecration of his authority by persons and bodies subject to his supervisory control. You have to admire Buhari’s commitment to the idea of non-interference. He lets his appointees poke fingers in his eyes. Or so it seems. The president to the surprise of everyone went into a less than presidential negotiation with the DSS when he asked the Attorney General to investigate the controversial DSS report and Magu. Yes, even that decision was ludicrous. The president saw that report before he nominated Magu. It’s obvious he made light of the avoidable rejection of his own nominee. Has age slackened the president? The Attorney General, as the chief law officer of the federation, ordinarily should have some legal supervisory role over the DSS. The Attorney-General’s legal interpretation of any disputed conclusion, with legal implications, reached by the DSS, should be treated by the DSS, as superior direction. And if the Attorney General is specifically mandated by the president to review any action of the DSS, a DSS submissive to the constitution, must yield to the interpretation of the nation’s chief law officer. I am trying hard to be civil.

The decision to re-nominate Magu was that of the president. In re-nominating Magu, the president effectively and conclusively dismissed the DSS report and its conclusions. The president had by that re-nomination staked his integrity. So when the DSS sent another communication, in march 2016, to the Senate to the effect that Magu lacked requisite integrity, the DSS wasn’t taking on Magu any longer, it was confronting the president. It wasn’t questioning the president’s judgment any longer, it was questioning directly the president’s integrity. And you have to admire the courage of the DSS. In this clime, presidents are gods.

Director-General of Department of State Service, DSS, Mr Lawal Daura and Director-General of Nigerian Customs Service, NCS, Col Hameed Ali (retd)

But courage becomes rascality if it has no legitimate moral foundation. The DSS has made its point assuming its initial objection was conscientious. Only a rogue institution would so trenchantly undermine superior authority publicly. Whoever was displeased in the DSS has been heard. His next reasonable step is a resignation. To contradict the president with such adamancy is gross insubordination.

And the public is not amused. The power the president wields belongs to the people. The people are irritated when they see a president act with curious timidity. You have to admire Buhari and his ability to delegate powers. But when a president allows an appointee to ridicule his judgment, the way it has been done, without consequences, the people begin to wonder if the president is actually free. Presidents have kitchen cabinets, but no one wants his president held hostage and mocked by any cabal.

This spectacle is as ugly as it is scary. We can dismiss rumours of infighting in the presidency as barber-shop gossip. But that which has played out in full public glare since October is worrisome. More confounding is the indifference, the seeming impotence of the president. The public is rightly perplexed.

Some have suggested that the conundrum is evidence of crippling nepotism. But I would like to believe that it is non-interference taken too far. President Buhari can sanction an unruly officer without blinking. But others have suggested the DSS is playing a script written by Buhari himself and that explains the effrontery. President Buhari has a reputation, doesn’t play hide and seek. But if Buhari quietly approved the conduct of the DSS, he must understand that ambiguity damages public confidence. Senator Shehu Sani and others believe a civil war is ravaging the presidency. If the senator is credible, then the president has a radical reformative surgery to perform.

Magu has performed creditably on the job.