After months of waiting, the Senate will today begin the screening of the ministerial nominees. President Muhammadu Buhari had received flak from various quarters for his inability to constitute his cabinet four months after inauguration on May 29 this year.
Buhari had submitted the first tranche of the ministerial list to Bukola Saraki, Senate president at 5pm Wednesday, September 30, through his Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, accompanied by Ita Enang, senior special assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate). He had promised that the list of other nominees would be submitted “shortly”.
The letter containing the names of the nominees was officially read on the floor of the Senate on Tuesday, October 6, 2015.
Before today, speculations were rife that there would be drama at the red-chamber as a result of the perceived rift before the Presidency and some sections of the National Assembly.
Last week, President Buhari met with the leadership of the National Assembly in what observers said was a move to crave the Senate’s cooperation in doing the needful.
Explaining the gains of the meeting, Ita Enang said: “I am sure that you can begin to feel the political temperature that has descended in the mind and psyche of Nigerians that the relationship between the Executive and the Legislature which were thought to be on heat has been fully, perfectly and effectively restored and the public is now aware. I want to say that the conjectures of a rift between the Executive and the Legislature were mere conjecture; there wasn’t. But I am sure that the meeting, as stated by the Senate President, really proved that there was no rift.”
However, analysts say that today is likely going to be a tough day for the Senate president, who is currently standing trial before the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) over allegation by the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) of false declaration of assets when he was governor of Kwara State 12 years ago. Saraki’s loyalists and sympathizers believe that his travail was orchestrated by the All Progressives Congress (APC) in league with the Presidency.
Pundits say that Saraki appears to be standing between the devil and the deep blue sea. And that how he decides to conduct the screening would determine his political future.
According to them, if he chooses to please the President and the APC by stamping all the nominees despite the cloud of massive corruption allegation over some of them, he would have purchased a space for himself on the list of infamy before the Nigerian masses. Contrariwise, if he decides to abide by the rules, regardless of pressures, his alleged traducers could bare their fangs.
The Senate President is indeed caught between obeying the wishes of greater number of Nigerians and that of his party.
Although the names of other nominees on the latest list sent by President Buhari to the Senate president yesterday are yet to be made public, the 21 nominees earlier received by Saraki sparked outrage from sections of the public, with some individuals and groups sending petitions to the Senate against some of the nominees on corruptions issue.
Tene John, head, Department of Political Science, Nigerian Institute of Journalism, Ogba, Lagos, said either way, the Senate President’s political future would be decided today when the senior lawmakers will commence screening of the ministerial nominees.
According to him, the Senate President’s seat is not an enviable one at the moment due to the enormity of what is at stake; coupled with the expectation of Nigerians and the divided interest of his party’s leadership over who becomes minister in the next federal cabinet.
“You can see that larger percent of Nigerians are completely dissatisfied and totally disappointed with some of the names on the ministerial list. In the history of Nigeria ministerial list have never sparked wide public criticism like this. Even President Buhari is not sure all the nominees would scale through. You can see that he has started romancing the leadership of the NASS. Saraki has suddenly become important because his seat is being needed now. But the Senate president must serve the interest of Nigeria above party and individual interests. He should remember that his party never wanted him in that position. He should actually pay the APC back in its own coin by serving the interest of Nigerians,” John said.
Gbenga Taiwo, a Port Harcourt based political commentator, said the division within the ruling APC orchestrated by power tussle and brewing suspicion among the party’s leadership hierarchy between the South West and the North, which was again fuelled by the ministerial list after the fallout of who emerge as leaders of the NASS, has now turned Bukola Saraki into a sought after bride.
He said: “Do you see that Senator Oluremi Tinubu’s countenance has suddenly changed favourably to Bukola Saraki? The way things are at the moment, Saraki has the Master Key to lock both the President and Bola Tinubu out of the Assembly. Asiwaju can actually work with Saraki to stop South West nominees who he did not sanction. That may even account for why his wife becomes soft with the Senate President. But if Saraki puts Nigerians first he will become even more popular”, he told BD SUNDAY.
He explained that the 8th Assembly, if it decides to be truly independent, could make Nigerians experience the beauty of separation of power in a democratic environment and that Saraki’s ordeal at the CCT was masterminded to blackmailed him ahead of time.
Oluremi Tinubu , a former Lagos First Lady and Wife of a national leader of the APC, addressed Bukola Saraki as “distinguished Senate President”, when she stood at last Thursday’s plenary to speak for the first time at the eighth Senate.
But the Senators have continued to talk tough ahead of Tuesday screening. Dino Melaye, Chairman, Senate ad hoc Committee on Media and Publicity, told journalists that a proof of declared asset is one of the hurdles to be scaled by the nominees before their eventual clearance.
He 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.
Zebulon Agomuo
