Senate Confirmation: Tough Time Awaits Buhari's Ministers

Tough times await ministerial nominees in the Senate on Tuesday as the Peoples Democratic Party senators on Friday vowed not to lower their guard during the screening at the upper legislative chamber.

According to PUNCH, it was reliably gathered that although some nominees had indirectly contacted some of the senators across party lines, their efforts had not yielded desired results so far.

Rotimi Amaechi sighted in Senate

The bold and fareless former Governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi, was sighted at the Senate on Friday obviously to perfect his documentation at the office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Senator Ita Enang.

Ameachi, who drove himself to the Federal Parliament in company with the immediate past senator representing Rivers East Senatorial District, Magnus Abe, spent about one hour in Enang’s office, without granting interview.

Nothing will stop us from doing our job — PDP senator

But on Friday, the Senator representing Delta South on the platform of PDP, Ighoyota Amori, in an interview with one of our correspondents, vowed that nothing would make members go back on the modalities for screening.

He described the ministerial list sent by Buhari as a compensation list.

The lawmaker said the nomination was to compensate appointees for their role in the past general elections, which brought the APC government to power.

He said, “First, to be frank to myself, it is shocking that the first list of ministers as was read on Tuesday by the Senate President fell short of national expectations particularly with this their ‘change mantra.’

“Between both of us, the wait between May 29 when the new government was sworn in and September 30 is not worth it in a serious minded government that knows its onions. There was no need for that long wait.”

He cited Britain, where he said Prime Minister David Cameron formed a government, the next day he won an election.

Amori stated, “The election took a long time to process. You have worked with these people and you know them; you should be able in a very serious government that talks about change to have a departure from the past to this ‘change’ which is the slogan.

“The change would have been that after electing them, they formed cabinet and start working immediately. People would have clapped for them. But from May 29 to September 30 and of course, we got the list officially on October 5 and when we heard the names, it was laughable.”

He wondered why it took the President a long time to nominate those, whose names were sent to the senate.

The senator stated, “There was nothing new about them deserving of this long wait. If you take them one by one, there were people who are in the news for one corruption case or the other. For me, I do not have anything against anybody but he would not have wasted the time of Nigerians if he knew he was going to recycle the same people.

“I can call it a compensation list for those who defected from the Peoples Democratic Party to help the un-organised army of people to get a victory they did not deserve. People that were used to sabotage their party.

“Look at Ameachi, would you not consider this nomination a compensation for doing a dirty job? Look at Fashola and Fayemi as well as Lai Mohammed, they are all the same. So, what is new? It is the same old story.

“But if APC wants, let them gather all the ex-convicts, we will still do our job. They have the gavel and they are very free to use it the way they like. We would resign our position to the court of public opinion. There are some we cannot oppose because we have seen something in them.”

“We’ll encourage nominees to reach out to senators" –Enang

Enang told reporters in Abuja, that the President respects the constitutional powers of the three arms of government- especially the powers of the legislature which approves the budget as well as screens ministerial nominees among other functions.

According to him, his office has encouraged each of the nominees to reach out to senators to smoothen the grounds.

He also explained that the nominees were being guided on the necessary documents they are expected to make available to senators to ease their confirmation.

Enang said, “We are generally discussing with them, (nominees) on matters they may wish to know more and we will work with them. We have emphasised with them that they have to consult.

“They have to go and meet their respective senators. The president nominated them to the senate; the senators representing their respective states are their first line of defence.

“They are their immediate sponsors other than the senate leader and they have to show absolute respect to all the senators and every other thing will fall in line.”

On the modalities for the screening he said, “The Senate is the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and it is free to set its criteria for the screening of the nominees appearing before it.

“Our job is to make sure that we work with the respective senators and the nominees to make sure that the senators are satisfied and agree with the nomination.”

Rivers State APC Deputy Chairman, Chief Peter Odike, said the party was not leaving anything to chance. He said the party was doing all within its power to ensure that Amaechi scales through the screening.

Odike, who spoke through his Media Assistant, Mr. Paul Osiagu, expressed confidence that there were PDP senators who were sympathetic to Amaechi’s course and would rise up to defend him when the time is ripe.