Senate screening: Hurdles for ministerial nominees

The wait is over. The battlefield has shifted from the national headquarters of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to states and the National Assembly. Senators from states vehemen
tly opposed to the choice of some of the ministerial nominees are gearing up for a  battle of supremacy. Although series of opposition and petitions against some of the nominees could not stampede President Muhammadu Buhari from forwarding their names to the National Assembly, their antagonists are battle ready to take the last shot.
Prior to the official announcement of the names of the much-awaited ministerial nominees, Nigerians had expected that it would be a total departure from the past. They had expected that fresh blood would be injected into the system, while old horses who have held sway since the early years of Nigeria’s independence would automatically retire from active politics. Alas, their hopes where dashed or better put, smashed.
Many moderate supporters of President Buhari who went to the polls to vote, believing that his emergence will usher in a breath of fresh air from the16 years of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), are yet to recover from the shock when names of some nominees were called by the Senate President Bukola Saraki  as he read the names on the list handed to him by the President . For instance, ardent critics of the nominees observed that in 1979, the then majority leader of the Senate, late Alhaji Olusola Saraki, who coincedentally is  the father of the current Senate president, screened Chief Audu Ogbeh as a minister.
There is another burning issue. Some, either out of mischef or other reasons have noted that the popular names on the ministerial list were the founding fathers of the PDP, which the current government repeatedly claimed destroyed Nigeria. The current scenario playing out gives credence to a recent insinuation made by a former governor of Kano state, Mallam Ibrahim Shekerau that there is no difference between the PDP and APC. “You see I have always said it that all the political parties are necessary evil. In each of them, there is the good there is the bad. It depends on where you find yourself and with who and who you are interacting,” he had noted.
There is a standing Senate rule that for any ministerial nominee to scale through screening, his nomination must be endorsed by two out of the three Senators from his state of origin. Although in many instances the leadership of David Mark paid blind eyes to the rule ostensibly   to accommodate certain interest, the current leadership of the Red Chamber may ply the same road . And that is where the nominees would have a problem.
The senate  keeping to its rule on the screening  will pose a huge challenge for some of the minister-designates whose nominations are under threat. For instance, former governor of Rivers state is fighting the battle of his life to fence off avalanche of petitions and moves  against his nomination, especially from the three PDP Senators from his state. If the Senate leadership sticks to the rule and insists on securing the support of two Senators from each state, Amaechi might get the shocker of his life when screening commences next Tuesday.
On securing support from two Senators from the state of origin of the nominees, chairman of the adhoc committee on Media and Public Affairs of the Senate, Dino Melaye said: “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.
“I addressed you earlier, and told you that 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. They are not also just coming to take a bow and go; but we have modified the condition for you to become a minister . the minimum requirement for whoever wants to be a member of the House of Representatives; and 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. The Senate is also going to give priority to former members of the National Assembly in terms of the time for the screening.
A clue as to what to expect came up last Wednesday when a petition against Amaechi was submitted by Senator Thompson Sekibo from Rivers state on behalf of one of his constituents. Citing Order 41 of the Senate Standing rule, Sekibo told the Senate that his constituents asked him to submit a petition against the nomination of Amaechi. He was shouted down before he could finish his presentation. For a while, loud shouts of No! No!! No!!! emerged from the section of the chamber occupied by the All Pro­gressives Congress (APC) Senators.
The APC Senators were immediately countered by their Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Senators, who shouted Yes! Yes!! Yes!!!. The comic situation became so rowdy and prompted the Senate president’s inter­vention. Saraki hit his gavel hard in order to restore calm in the chamber. When Sekibo was rec­ognised again to conclude his submissions, he told his colleagues that the petition deserved prompt attention by the Senate because of the issues raised by the pe­titioner.
“There is the group that is called the Integrity Group and they believe in trans­parency, fighting against corruption, they believe in good governance and ef­fective utilisation of every fund that is allocated to any state government. They are based in Port Harcourt. They went into research and discovered that over N70billion was transferred from hard cur­rency account to places out­side the country and a peti­tion on this note was written to Mr. President. I believe the President has not read it. If he has read it, he may not hurriedly nominate Rotimi Amaechi to be a minister.”
The Senate president asked Sekibo to lay the petition on the table, which was referred to the Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions for further consideration.
The office said allegation of funds diversion “is unfortunate and leaves much to be desired. The mischief is all the more evident as the funds referred to are funds from the Rivers State Reserve Fund, which were duly approved by the Rivers State House of Assem­bly and whose expenditure were duly captured and ac­counted for.
“Ordinarily we might not have responded to the mis­chief of Mr. Wike knowing that having failed with his various desperate tactics to stop the nomination of the Amaechi as a minister, he has embarked on this last ditch effort, which is his trump card in the hope that it will diminish the former governor’s towering stature as a statesman and honest Nigerian.”
Adebayo Shittu from Oyo state is another nominee battling his state chapter of APC. Oyo APC has complained to President Buhari long before the official list of ministerial nominees was unveiled over what they considered “Marginalisation of Oyo State in Political Appointments”. Their position was contained in a letter jointly signed by Chief Akin Oke, State Party Chairman and Hon. Mojeed Olaoya, the State Secretary, addressed to President Buhari.
In the letter, the State APC expressed surprise that their performance has not been commensurately rewarded at the national level, as well as in Oyo . It claimed that it  performed creditably in terms of contribution of votes to the overall success of our party.
The petitioners also lamented that “the current power matrix shows that the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives hails from Osun state while the recently appointed Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue is a Lagosian. Both in the Senate and the House of Representatives, no lawmaker from Oyo state heads any of the committees that had so far been constituted. In fact not even any of the visible party positions nationally despite the fact that Oyo state is the political capital of the South West. Shittu is not keeping mum over the opposition to his nomination . He described opposition from some of his party men and kinsmen in the state as overwhelming and inconsequential. Reacting to the series of opposition against his nomination, Shittu, a two time commissioner in the state and former member of the old Oyo State House of Assembly described the position of the party chieftains as misleading and against the interest of the majority of residents of the state.
The ministerial nominee, who was a governorship aspirant of the APC in the last general elections in the state maintained that all what the party officials made reference to in the open letter were intra-party squabbles, some of which Mr. President himself, Muhammadu Buhari intervened to get them resolved. He de­scribed his nomination as one of the best things that could happen to Oyo state.
The nominee from Akwa Ibom state, Udoma Udo-Udoma, is not insulated from the orgy of attacks, petitions and rejections. A political support group of the APC in the state has rejected his nomination by President Buhari. The group said they are basing their opposition on the fact that “Senator Udoma Udo Udoma is a card carrying member of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party and an inner caucus member of the Mr. Udom Emmanuel’s government which was forcefully imposed on us by Chief Godswill Akpabio before he proceeded to the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
In a statement signed by Mr. Solomon Akpan, director of Information of the APC group, they stated that they approached Udoma to contest the 2015 governorship election under the platform of APC but he told them “straight and rigid-that he is a committed member of the PDP and would not want to mess himself up with opposition politics.”
“He has never thought that APC will ever rule Nigeria. Apart from this fact, Udoma is so isolated from Akwa Ibom masses and handing him such political profile will not in any way improve the fortune of APC in Akwa Ibom state. There are many seasoned technocrats, bureaucrats and properly groomed men and women with impeccable character in all fields of human endeavor who took the challenge, put their lives and resources on the line for the growth of opposition politics in Akwa Ibom State, an action which Sen. Udoma dreaded.
“It is only reasonable and acceptable that His Excellency, President Muhamadu Buhari picks a candidate from these group of party men who we have confidence, shall properly interpret and implement the party’s Change Agenda in line with Mr. President’s plan of redirecting our country from the Abyss which PDP thrown her into in the last sixteen years,” the group added.
There are other nominees from northern states, especially in states dominated by the PDP. But the battle ground appears to be in the south where the opposition PDP still controls a sizeable number of states. The fallout of the screening and confirmation exercise will either mend the broken fences between the presidency and the Senate or aggravate it . If it goes sour, more fireworks and cold war should be expected in the months to come between the executive and the legislature.