…Urges NASS To Jettison His Confirmation
The National Assembly has been called upon to expeditiously order the
thorough, open and dispassionate probe of the recent recruitment exercise
conducted by the Acting Chairman Mr. Ibrahim Magu in which Northerners
dominated by over 75 percent.
Making the call in a press statement in Abuja, the pro-democracy
Non-Governmental Organization- HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA
(HURIWA) has also carpeted the Federal Character Commission (FCC) for its
gross incompetence and criminal collusion which has allowed for such
flagrant breaches of the constitutional stipulation by a Federal agency
such as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in its employment
function.
Lamenting that the Federal Character Commission had similarly remained
dormant and compromised whilst President Muhammadu Buhari failed to carry
the South East of Nigeria along in the appointment of top level Defence
and Security positions
Besides, HURIWA said other agencies such as the Nigerian Customs Service
headed by a retired military Colonel had recently made lopsided promotions
of the top cadres which unconstitutionally excluded the South East.
Speaking specifically on the emerging recruitment scandal in the Economic
and Financial Crimes Commission, the Rights body charged the National
Assembly to jettison the confirmation process of the Acting Chairman of
the EFCC Mr. Ibrahim Magu because of such illegalities inherent in the
recruitment exercise and other abuses of the human rights of suspects
being detained in the facilities run by the anti-graft body.
HURIWA stated thus: “we call on the relevant committees of the National
Assembly and indeed the hierarchies of the two chambers of the National
Assembly to investigate the allegations published by an Abuja based
national daily which discovered that apart from the fact that 75 percent
of the shortlisted candidates are from the North, several of such
candidates bore the same family names. This is an unmitigated scandal of
monumental proportions which mustn’t be swept under the carpets. This
unpardonable impunity must be investigated and the top management of this
agency sanctioned appropriately because what has been done is extensively
damaging and indeed goes to uproot the foundational integrity of that
agency of law enforcement. ”
“It is important that this vital agency of government charged with the
statutory responsibility of waging a fight against economic crimes is not
allowed to get away with such monumental economic scam of dominating the
workforce with persons from a section of Nigeria to the total negation of
the Federal Character Principles enshrined in Section 14 (3).
HURIWA stated that the above mentioned constitutional provision states
thus: “The composition of the Government of the Federation or any of its
agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such a
manner as to reflect the federal character of Nigeria and the need to
promote national unity, and also to command national loyalty, thereby
ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few State
or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in that Government or in
any of its agencies.”
The Rights group said if the relevant supervisory bodies such as the
National Assembly and the Federal Character Commission should let this
recruitment scam go without redress then the organized civil society
community will head to the Court of law to use the instrumentality of the
Nigerian Court system in line with Section 6 of the Constitution to
overturn this illegality in EFCC.