Fears have crept into the camps of some ministerial nominees following the release of the screening criteria by the Senate on Thursday.
They are particularly worried about the criteria which stipulates endorsement of the nominees by at least two senators from their states.
According to reports, 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.
PUNCH reports that as at the close of work on Thursday checks at the office of the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions showed that 25 petitions had been submitted to it.
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.”
There a few states even among the All Progressive Congress controlled states in which the nomin ees do not enjoy the support of their state government. Reports indicate for instance that Lagos State Government is not particularly happy at the choice of Babatunde Fashola as the nominee representing the state.
But nominee whose screening promises to be stormy is that of the controversial former governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi, where all three senators are from the opposition Peoples Democratic Party.
Besides, that is a state which appears not to have put the elections behind them. The APC in opposition in the state has continued to refer to Governor Nyesom Wike disrespectfully as the caretaker governor of the state. The governor also set up a probe panel against Amaechi’s administration, which has indicted the former governor of misappropriating N53 billion of the state’s funds.
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.
The Rivers State chapter of the All Progressives Congress with this scenario in mind 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, twas quoted as saying 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.
Finebone wants the Senate to truncate such a criterion.
He cited the example 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.
It was gathered that the fears of the Amaechi loyalists stem from the fact that based on the fouled political atmosphere in the state, the former governor of the state is unlikely to get the endorsement of any senator from the state.
– with web reports
