Emmanuel Thomas, Lagos
October 13, 2015 – Nigerians are preparing to watch drama of the highest order in the Senate on today as the upper chamber gets set to screen ministerial nominees in what promises to be the most explosive moments.
Already the stakes are very high, with ongoing prosecution of President of the Senate, Dr. Bukola Saraki by the Code of Conduct Tribunal on 13 count charges on one hand, which analysts believe is orchestrated by President Muhammadu Buhari in conjunction with national leader of the All Progressive Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Already the Senate has set very tough condition for the screening. Speaking on the condition, Senate Spokesman, Mr. Dino Melaye said the upper chamber will be relying on Section 147 of the constitution.
“This section shall be strictly adhered to by the Senate, meaning that there will be ministers from each state of the federation in compliance with the constitution.
“We shall also consider Section 65, which stipulates that only a person who is qualified to be a member of the House of Representatives can be qualified to be screened as a Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The Senate will not consider the screening of anybody who has held any public office except the person has declared his assets.”
According to Melaye the Senate would insist on seeing the proof of assets declaration before a person who had held a public office could be cleared to be a minister and that the Senate would uphold its convention on insisting that two senators from the state of any nominee must accept the nomination before such a nominee can be screened.
“I cannot predict the future”, he said adding that former legislators would not just bow and go, but would not be exposed to rigorous scrutiny as their counterparts who had never been federal legislators. The Senate is not going to politicise the screening. There will be no provision for religion, tribe, ethnicity and other discrimination. All ministerial nominees must submit a minimum of 115 copies of their curriculum vitae on or before Monday October 12”, he said.
While these are some of the conditions put in place which will likely hit up debate in the chamber, many are however calling for caution on the part of the lawmakers.
On his part, Tinubu is admonishing the Senate President to treat the nomination process with dispatch, justice, fairness, transparency, and most of all with the greatest patriotism.
But Tinubu is not alone, Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL) also called on the Senate to allow for open mindedness during the screening exercise.
According to CACOL, the body language of some vocal senators since the submission of the list by the president, has so far given a lead to what is likely to witness a war of allegiance rather a supposed constitutional exercise aimed at ensuring that those given the mandate to administer the affairs of governance as ministers are eminently qualified to do so.
“If the grapevine account is anything to go by, the senate, in the course of carrying out its duty in this regard, might turn out to be a ’house of commotion’ in which tent-pitching and premeditated vendetta, premised on political persuasion, take precedent over consideration for merit.
“This is why CACOL considers it expedient at this point in time, to remind members of the upper chambers that their allegiance as representatives of the Nigerian people should be first, to the people and the nation of Nigeria and therefore should take precedence over all other considerations.
“A focused, patriotic and objective legislature remains key to any resourceful democracy and for our hard-fought democracy to be successful and to stand the test of time, a healthy synergy between the executive and the legislature cannot be substituted”, CACOL’s group’s head, Debo Adeniran stressed.
He added that although, CACOL has overtime remained in the forefront in demanding on behalf of the Nigerian masses that a thorough screening job be done by the law-making body, to ensure that people of character and integrity be assigned ministerial responsibilities, it noted that this however should not be done on the altar of score-settling and blinded antagonism – all in the name of politics.
“They should remember that the common interest of Nigerians is Nigeria”, he said said.
