Former Minister of Works Adeseye Ogunlewe, ex-Cross River State Governor Donald Duke and former Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) President Dr Olisa Agbakoba (SAN) yesterday spoke of how future screening of ministerial nominees should be done. It should be conducted only when the nominees’ portfolios are known, they said.
They said if President Muhammadu Buhari had attached portfolios to the nominees, it would have made their screening by the Senate more meaningful.
Dean, Faculty of Law, Ambrose Alli University, Prof. Suny Edeko, and a law teacher at the University of Lagos, Wahab Shittu, shared the trio’s veiws.
Ogunlewe called for the enactment of a law to compel the attachment of portfolios to the nominees sent for screening.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain said the law, if enacted, would ensure that nominees were subjected to better screening, based on attached portfolios.
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”The Senate has done well so far, the only problem is that there were no portfolios attached to the nominees.
”There is no opportunity for thorough screening based on portfolios that will be assigned to the nominees eventually.
”They (senators) listened to complaints of the people and decided to ask questions, but the questions were of general applications; they were not about specific portfolios.
”There is the need for the country to have a law that will compel any administration to attach portfolios to ministerial nominees,” he said.
The former minister told the News agency of Nigeria (NAN) that with the law, nominees might not need to be screened by Committee of the Whole, but by specific committees.
On the Senate’s decision to ask some nominees to take a bow, Ogunlewe said there was nothing wrong with it.
He urged those advocating splitting of the portfolios held by the immediate past Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola, into three, to leave the decision to President Muhammadu Buhari.
Duke faulted screening of nominees without portfolios.
“How can you screen nominees without portfolios? It is not just right. It shows we are not ready to get things right,” he said.
For Agbakoba, the Senate should request for nominees’ portfolios from the President before screening.
He told The Nation that civil society had a big role to play in the process.
Agbakoba said: “It’s not about a law to compel but advocacy pressure by civil society to sensitise the Senate to request the president to assign portfolios to the nominee in order for the screening process to make meaningful sense.”
According to Prof Edeko, enacting a law was not the issue.
He said: “The ideal thing is that with or without any law, that is what Mr President is supposed to do, so that at the time of screening, when lawmakers are asking questions, they ought to focus their questions on the portfolio of the nominee.
“It doesn’t even require a law; that is the ideal thing that should be done by Mr President. Law or no law, that is how it should be. If it has not been done like that, it is very wrong.
“It’s like Festus Keyamo (SAN) talking about how he will unbundle the Supreme Court, have they even informed him that he will be the Attorney-General and Minister for Justice?”
Shittu agreed with the need for portfolios to be attached to nominees.
“I agree with that suggestion so that we can have square pegs in square holes,” he said.
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