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National Assembly has no powers to summon Buhari – AGF Malami

The Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami has said that the National assembly has no constitutional powers to summon the President, Muhammadu Buhari.

This comes days after it was announced that President Muhammadu Buhari would address a joint session of the National Assembly after he was summoned by the House of Representatives over the alarming rate of insecurity in the country.

In a shocking statement issued on Wednesday, Malami stated that the president cannot be summoned to the parliament.

He added that it is risky to reveal federal government’s security strategies, saying this was “confidential.”

His statement  read:

“Mr. President has enjoyed Constitutional privileges attached to the Office of the President including exclusivity and confidentiality investiture in security operational matters, which remains sacrosanct.

“…The National Assembly has no Constitutional Power to envisage or contemplate a situation where the President would be summoned by the National Assembly on operational use of the Armed Forces. The right of the President to engage the National Assembly and appear before it is inherently discretionary in the President and not at the behest of the National Assembly.

“The management and control of the security sector is exclusively vested in the President by Section 218 (1) of the Constitution as the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces including the power to determine the operational use of the Armed Forces. An invitation that seeks to put the operational use of the Armed Forces to a public interrogation is indeed taking the constitutional rights of law making beyond bounds.

“As the Commander in Chief, the President has exclusivity on security and has confidentiality over These powers and rights he does not share. So, by summoning the President on National Security operational Matters, the House of Representative operated outside constitutional bounds.

“President’s exclusivity of constitutional confidentiality investiture within the context of the constitution remains sacrosanct.”

It remains unclear whether the president will still make the NASS appearance scheduled for Thursday.

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