Making Mockery of Ministerial Screening

Senators recently organised another jamboree in the name of ministerial screening where nominees were shielded from probing questions. Ejiofor Alike writes that having demonstrated over the years that they lack the independence to interrogate nominees thoroughly and reject those with questionable credentials, senators should stop ridiculing Nigeria before the international community

Over the years, the Nigerian senators have become the butt of a joke during their ministerial screening as they make mockery of this important legislative assignment.

Ministerial screening should be an opportunity for the federal lawmakers to interrogate the nominees sufficiently and probe deeply into their private and public lives with a view to disqualifying those who fail to distinguish themselves.

However, the exercise has become a mere ritual to clear whoever is nominated by the president after a public show, which in some cases, makes mockery of legislative functions and also ridicules Nigeria before the international community.

 Senators who ask probing questions are overruled while public petitions are not entertained to affirm the competence or expose the incompetence of the nominees.

At every ministerial screening, the president of the senate and some incurably partisan lawmakers are always on alert to shield the nominees from probing questions, which they always view as ‘embarrassing’ to the nominees.

The President of the 10th Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio acted the same script when the lawmakers screened some of the ministerial nominees submitted by President Bola Tinubu last week.

The first screening exercise held on Monday exposed some discrepancies in the academic certificates of a ministerial nominee from Sokoto State, Bello Muhammad, which was sufficient for the Senate to disqualify him, pending when he provided the SSCE certificate that qualified him to attend the university.

Unfortunately, Akpabio shielded him and denied the public the opportunity to know how the nominee gained admission into the university with only two credits.

The Senator representing Rivers East, Allwell Onyesoh had noted that Muhammad has only two credits in his Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (SSCE) result and asked the nominee to explain how he attended the university with only two credits.

In his response, Muhammad told the lawmakers that he has other SSCE results in which he “passed all” subjects, adding that he did not attach them to his CV

“I have other secondary school results which I have all passed. That is not attached to my CV because we are talking of a secondary school certificate,” he said.

“I want to remind the distinguished senator, who I know very much knows that with the qualification of secondary school certificate as enshrined in the constitution, we can stand for an election up to the presidential election.

“So, I didn’t bother you with such certificates. But I know those are the qualifications for that.” 

But Akpabio rightly reminded him that there is a difference between standing for an election and being nominated to serve as a minister.

“You’re not coming to stand for election, you’re coming to be a minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. So, which are the other certificates you concealed? Which are the other certificates you did not put in your CV?” Akpabio queried.

In response, Muhammad explained further that the result he submitted to the lawmakers is his first in which he passed with only two credits, insisting that there are other SSCEs he sat and passed all subjects.

“I sat for another examination and I have passed but I don’t want to attach another qualification,” he said.

When the lawmakers shouted in disagreement after his comments, it was an opportunity for Akpabio to dismiss the nominee, pending when he presents the required certificates.

But Akpabio chose to shield him by advising him to submit all his certificates to the clerk.

The Senate President went further to claim that all nominees must present all their certificates in totality, “including the number of children they have and the number of houses”.

He also insisted that Nigerians have a right to know the details of their ministerial nominees. 

However, when it was the turn of the former Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, on Tuesday, the Senate President demonstrated that his previous pronouncements on Nigerians having the right to know were mere rhetoric as he also shielded the former governor from answering questions on damning allegations hanging on his neck.

The lawmaker representing Kogi West, Senator Sunday Karimi, after El-Rufai’s presentations, stood up and told the chamber that he had a petition written against the former governor over the issue of killings in Southern Kaduna.

Raising up a brown envelope, Karimi said, “Mr. President, I have a petition written against the nominee over the issue of insecurity in Southern Kaduna when he was governor.

“If I am permitted, I would like to read the petition.”

But Akpabio, who refused to take the petition, revealed that a number of petitions were submitted against some of the nominees.

He said, “This is not the place to consider petitions; we will sit with the petitions later and refer them to relevant authorities.”

Many Nigerians have wondered why the Senate should waste their legislative time conducting such a public show if they would not entertain petitions from the public against the nominees.

Akpabio also during Wednesday’s ministerial screening prevented presidential spokesman, Dele Alake, from reciting the second stanza of the national anthem as requested by the Minority Leader of the Senate, Senator Simon Mwadkwon, who represents Plateau North.

Mwadkwon had asked Alake to recite the second stanza of the national anthem to show that he has what it takes to be the imagemaker of Nigeria if appointed Minister of Information and Culture.

But the Majority Leader of the Senate, Opeyemi Bamidele from Ekiti Central Senatorial District, who spoke for the Ekiti State caucus, said the Plateau Senator has brought politics into the screening by asking that Alake recite the national anthem which other nominees were not asked to recite.

Bamidele asked Akpabio to expunge the request and the Senate President surprisingly did just that.

“We are here to do serious business on how to move this country forward and to ask the nominees what they will bring on the table to assist us to get out of the economic conundrum. It is not necessarily to sing songs,” Akpabio said.

Earlier, Mwadkwon claimed that Alake had in a statement labelled supporters of a certain presidential candidate as “wild dogs” during the last presidential election.

“Have you come across that statement? Are you aware of it? Did you say that?” the senator queried.

Many Nigerians believe that Mwadkwon’s question was in order because Nigeria’s imagemaker should not use gutter language.

However, Akpabio stopped the Plateau senator and also prevented the nominee from responding to the question.

If the senators do not have any doubt about the credibility of ministerial nominees and their capacities to handle any portfolios assigned to them, they should stop ministerial screening to avoid making mockery of themselves and the country.

Ministerial screening is irrelevant if the nominees won’t be subjected to probing questions and public petitions.