The Senate on Thursday released the criteria for screening
President Muhammadu Buhari’s ministerial nominees. The
screening is scheduled to commence on October 13.
On top of the demands from the nominees is: come with a proof
that you have declared your assets.

Briefing journalists at the end of plenary, Chairman, Senate adhoc Committee on Media and Publicity, Dino Melaye, said the
upper chamber at its closed session agreed on hurdles to be
scaled by the nominees before their eventual clearance.
Melaye explained that the senators insisted that each nominee
must submit proofs of their asset declaration; must have their
nomination approved by two senators from their states; and
must have a clean bill of health from its public petitions
committee, among other conditions.

Submission of asset declaration form was not included in the
modalities for screening ministerial nominees in 2011.

President of the Senate, Dr Bukola Saraki, is currently on trial at
the Code of Conduct Tribunal for alleged false asset declaration
when he was governor of Kwara State between 2003 and 2011.

Melaye said, “We considered a number of issues that had to do
with the approach and the procedure for the screening of the
ministerial nominees. So, we developed two modalities for the
screening of the ministerial nominees.

“The first criterion is using constitutional provisions as
stipulated in the 1999 Constitution (as amended) as a
fundamental procedure for the screening of ministerial
nominees.

“Section 120 of the Standing Rules of the Senate states that the
Senate shall not consider the nomination of any person, who has
held any public office as contained in Part 2 of the Fifth
Schedule of the Constitution prior to his nomination unless there
is a written evidence that he has declared his assets and liabilities
as required by Section 11(1) of Part 1 of the Fifth Schedule of
the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

“Such declaration shall be required for scrutiny by the senators.

What this Section is saying is that every ministerial nominee
must produce proof of compliance as required by the
Constitution and the Rules of the Senate.

“You must declare your assets, and you must have a certificate
of proof that you have declared your assets, and that you are
given a certificate of proof by the Code of Conduct Bureau.

“We also, in line with our convention, agreed that for you to be
cleared as a minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,
minimum of two senators from your state must, at least, show
support for your nomination.

“It’s a convention by the Senate, and we have decided to uphold
that convention in the sanctity of the integrity of the Senate.

The era of take-a-bow-and-go is over. We are still going to maintain
that, except with slight modification as regards former senators
and former members of the National Assembly.

“For those who have been members of the House of
Representatives and senators before, for them to become
members of the House of Representatives and senators, they
must have met those conditions before now.

“So, they would not be exposed to the same rigorous scrutiny
that those who were not members of the National Assembly will
face.”

He added, “The Senate is also going to give priority to former
members of the National Assembly in terms of the time for the
screening. What I’m saying is that we may call up those, who
are former members of the National Assembly before we begin
to consider those, who are not members.

“We also, as a matter of modification for the take-a-bow-and-go,
where it concerns only former members of the National
Assembly, they may be questioned only by the chairman of that
sitting, who is the President of the Senate.’’

No fewer than 25 petitions have been submitted by various
individuals and groups seeking to stop the clearance of some of
the 21 ministerial nominees.

Checks at the office of the Senate Committee on Ethics,
Privileges and Public Petitions showed that 25 petitions had
been submitted to it as of the close of work on Thursday.

Apart from the petition against former Rivers State Governor
Rotimi Amaechi , which was submitted by the three senators
from Rivers State to the senate president on Wednesday, another
senator representing Kaduna South Senatorial District, Danjuma
La’ah, submitted his on Thursday against the nomination of
Mrs. Amina Mohammed from Kaduna State.

La’ah wrote on behalf of the Southern Kaduna Coalition, an
amalgamation of all the pressure and public interest groups of
Southern Kaduna extraction. Mohammed’s accusers said she
was not from Kaduna.

The petition, signed by the group’s coordinator, James Kanyi,
read in part, “We have credible evidence to believe that she is an
indigene of Gombe State and not Kaduna State as
constitutionally required.”

Eleven of the ministerial nominees were however at the National
Assembly on Thursday to submit their Curriculum Vitae ahead
of next Tuesday’s screening.
The deadline for the submission of the CVs, according to the
Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly
Matters (Senate), Ita Enang, is Friday (today).

Saraki on Thursday asked the committee of the Senate currently
investigating the petitions against the nominees to submit its
report before the screening starts next week.

Meanwhile, the Rivers State chapter of the All Progressives
Congress has disagreed with the Senate new rule that a
ministerial nominee must get the support of at least two senators
from his state to scale through screening.

The spokesman for the APC in Rivers, Mr. Chris Finebone,
told our correspondent in a telephone interview on Thursday
that something was wrong with such a rule on the screening of
ministerial nominees.

Finebone explained that a ministerial nominee did not need the
support of any senator to be confirmed a minister.

The three representing Rivers State in the Senate – Olaka
Nwogu, George Sekibo and Osinakachukwu Ideozu – are all
members of the Peoples Democratic Party.

Amaechi, the nominee from the state is of the APC.

Calling on the Senate to forget about such criterion, Finebone
recalled that Musiliu Obanikoro, who was from an APC state,
but a member of the PDP, was able to scale through and became
a minister.

He said, “I am sure that there is something wrong there; there is
something not correct there. I know we have had cases where,
for an example, Obanikoro never got the support of any senator
and he scaled through. So, there is something I suspect that is
not right there.

“Beyond Obanikoro, we have also had other examples where
ministerial nominees never got the support of senators from
their states and they scaled through. How about states where the
senators are all from the opposition party? Does it mean that the
Federal Government would surrender to the opposition?

“I don’t think it has been happening in the past. There were
places where the senators were from the opposition, yet the
Federal Government got its ministers not from the opposition
party.

“The Senate should forget about such a rule because in the past
it never came to play. I want to be sure that it is a new thing they
have invented. But it does not work that way; it will not work
that way. I don’t want to also believe that the rules are changing
with some persons in mind.”

Also, a former aide to the immediate past governor of the state,
Mr. Tony Okocha, recalled that two senators in the past had
opposed the nomination of Mr. Henry Ogiri for a position in the
Niger Delta Development Commission but that Ogiri eventually
scaled through despite such opposition.

“It does not follow. Are we not Nigerians? Obanikoro, who
was from a state in the opposition party in the past, was made a
minister in recent past despite coming from the state from the
opposition party,” Okocha said.