and groups seeking to stop the clearance of some of the 21 ministerial
nominees.
According to Punch reports, 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, according to
Punch, said 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.
Read Rivers APC's Statement In Part:
"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."
-SkytrendNews
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