Senators and House of Representatives members who are ministerial nominees won’t be told to just “take a bow” and go, it was learnt yesterday.
The screening will be thorough, some senators said.
The list of nominees will be unveiled today by Senate President Bukola Saraki, who received it from the Presidency last Thursday.
The Chairman, Senate Ad-hoc Committee on Media and Publicity, Senator Dino Melaye, said “the era of bow and go” was gone.
Also setting the terms for the screening, Senator Mao Ohuabunwa told reporters that though the Senate would be guided by the constitution and its rules, the upper chamber had resolved to be stringent in its approach.
Ohuabunwa noted that if Senators and members of the House are on the list, they would be accorded respect without automatic clearance.
The Senate, he said, will make sure that whoever is nominated as minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria must be somebody worth his the salt and “somebody we can rely upon and somebody who would have met the constitutional requirements of the appointments.”
He said: “The list will be unveiled tomorrow the Senate President kept to his word that the envelope will remain sealed until tomorrow (today).
“We know that all we have been reading could be speculations until it is opened.
“It will be read on the floor and we will know.”
On the Senate tradition of “bow and go” for Senator-nominees, he said:
“We will be guided by the constitution and the rules of the Senate. This time around we resolved we are going to be quite stringent.
”The screening of senators if there are senators in the list will be an admixture.
“The admixture I mean is that being qualified to have been the member of the House of Representatives automatically qualifies you to be a senator because constitutionally, being any of this qualifies you to be a minister.
“Everywhere in the world, we have es spirit de’corps, so there is nothing wrong about it.
“However there is going to be an admixture but that does not mean you will just come and take a bow.
“We will want you to talk to Nigerians to show that at least you are qualified to be a minister.”
Asked what would happen to nominees who have petitions against them, he said “This government that has tagged itself as the government of change, one of the cardinal things they want to be known for is that they fought corruption and if that is the cardinal thing, where they want to score a point then definitely, it will be against this senate and indeed against the president and Nigeria for us to see a very strong allegation or petition that hinges on corruption and we throw it away.
“Definitely we will not. If we see a strong petition, definitely we will look into it and follow it to a logical conclusion.
“If it requires writing to the anti graft agencies like ICPC or EFCC to give us a report on such a person we will do that because that is what screening is all about.
“Screening is not a tea party. We hear that in Cross River State the appointees are going to write aptitude test.
“Though I am not advocating that for the ministerial nominees but it shows that everybody now is serious that if you are going to be a minister of the federal republic of Nigeria, you should be a man of integrity, a man that we can rely upon at any time.
“So integrity is very important. If you have in one way or the other soiled your hands, it will be unfortunate because the senate will not just say carry go.
“Where two senators from a state reject not only ministers, any appointee of government, that issue will be looked into.
“Definitely we may not have made input into the nomination of the nominees because it is the responsibility of the president but subject to the confirmation of the senate.
“So as far as the senate is concerned we must make sure that the screening is done in accordance with the law of the country and if you have skeleton in your cupboard and to a large extent we can proof it, we will send you back to who brought you and that is the President.
“We are not considering waving any rule. Why should we wave the rule? If we want to do that, it should be before the screening.
“I believe that at the end of the day Nigerians will be happy because some Nigerians are already saying that the names being speculated were not what they were waiting for this five months.
“Some were saying that they were expecting to see some saints. So it is now for us to screen them and make sure that those that will make the list eventually will be men and women of integrity.
On whether the ministerial list will be used as bargaining chip with the Presidency, he said there was nothing to negotiate.
”I don’t see any room for negotiation, what are we negotiating for?
“The president has done his own job. All I know is that I expect that the list will be complete for us to move on because the constitution never said in batches and the constitution has said one minister from every state.
“So if you are screening and the other states are not represented how can you explain that because nothing says that the president must submit list in batches.
“If that is done, some states might be disenfranchised. To be fair to all is that the list must be complete.
“If it is not complete, some of us will raise constitutional issues which everybody will see and know which way forward because everything about parliament is that it must to be hinged on the law and we will see whether it is right or wrong.
“The constitution is clear and we will follow the constitution and laid down rule.”
On President Buhari as minister of petroleum, he said, “I don’t think the president’s name will be on the list and I also don’t think that the president will say he is a minister because if you are a minister one of the conditions is that you must be subjected to screening and approval of the senate.
“He as the chief minister can be there to supervise any ministry but he cannot be a minister. Whoever is advising him to be minister is not advising him rightly.
