Senate has “no power or authority to summon me. Period!” – Buhari’s Anti-Corruption Adviser Itse Sagay

The Senate on Wednesday, summoned Professor Itse Sagay, the Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Anti-Corruption (PACAC) over his statement on the Upper Chamber’s decision to stand down screening of Resident Electoral Commissioners (REC) appointed by President Buhari.

The Senate took the decision in protest of Ibrahim Magu‘s continuance as the acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Sagay had threatened the senate that they will regret their actions for humiliating Buhari since they didn’t confirm Magu. In the statement on PUNCH, Sagay described the Senate as ‘childish and irresponsible’ and one ‘filled by people of questionable character’.

Sagay, while reacting to the summon, said the Senate has no power or authority to summon him.

“I am waiting for the Senate summons. In any case, they don’t have the remotest of powers or authority to summon me because their power to summon people is very limited if you look at Section 88 and Section 89 of the constitution.

I don’t fall under the category of people that they can summon. I am not operating any federal programme to which they have voted money. They are not investigating me based on anything for which they have voted money. So, there is nothing they can do about it.

I expressed my personal view and if you feel very strongly about it, you can go to court and sue for defamation. That is the best anybody can do but to say I should come before the Senate committee based on an accusation by the same Senate committee which is going to act as a judge in the same case? It will charge me and judge me? It is unconstitutional and illegal,” Sagay told PUNCH.

Sagay also told Premium Times that he is not going to give those details of the sections of the constitution that limits the Senate’s power to summon people, saying: “but if they are foolish enough to insist on my coming, at the appropriate time and at appropriate venue, all the details will come out”

“But now let me just make general statement: they have no power or authority to summon me. Period!”