Bukola Saraki
The Senate has set
conditions for would-be members of the Federal Executive Council (FEC),
who are scheduled to appear for open screening at plenary on Tuesday and
Wednesday next week.
One of such conditions is that the
nominees must show proof of declaration of their assets. The Senate is
insisting that each nominee should appear with his asset declaration
certificate issued by the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB).
According to the Senate ad-Hoc Committee
Chairman on Information, Dino Melaye, the submission of assets
declaration documents has become mandatory for the would-be ministers,
especially those who had held political offices in the past.
He told reporters after the plenary yesterday that the decision was the outcome of the Senate’s executive session.
The demand for assets declaration
certificates from nominees is a clear departure from what obtained in
the upper legislative chamber since Nigeria returned to civil rule 16
years ago.
Melaye said: “Our meeting this
(yesterday) morning was primarily to develop a procedure for the
screening of ministerial nominees on Tuesday. We considered the approach
for the screening and we shall be relying on Section 147 of the
Constitution which state: ‘There shall be such offices of the ministers
of the federation as may be appointed by the President.’
“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,” he said.
Melaye said that 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 ministerial position.
Still relying on its Standing Rule, he
assured that former federal lawmakers among the nominees would enjoy
preferential treatment.
Melaye said: “Although they will not be
asked to simply take a bow and go, their screening will definitely not
be as rigorous as it will be in the case of others”.
He said that the Senate would uphold its
convention by insisting that two Senators from the state of any nominee
must accept the nomination before such a nominee can be screened.
Melaye, however, said that he could not
categorically say if that rule would be waived, stressing that “I cannot
predict the future”, explaining that the rule prescribing the
endorsement by two senators was not cast in granite and that the rule
could be subsumed under other weightier considerations.
The Senate spokesman said the
constitutional provision, stipulating that each of the 36 states of the
federation must have a representation in the Federal Executive Council
(FEC) cabinet remained sacrosanct.
Based on this provision, President
Muhammadu Buhari is expected to submit the remaining 15 nominees before
the end of the screening, scheduled for next Tuesday and Wednesday.
The senator restated his earlier statement that the era of ‘bow and go’ was gone for good.
His words: “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 to the upper legislative
chamber on or before Monday Oct. 12,” he said.
The Senate has asked the President’s
nominees for top positions in the Assets Management Corporation of
Nigeria (AMCON); the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS); and the
Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) to wait till the ministerial
nominees have been screened and cleared for appointment.
President Buhari had forwarded the list
of nominees for the three agencies to the Senate about two weeks before
the first list of ministerial nominees hit the Senate President’s Office
on September 30.
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