How future screening should be done, by Ogunlewe, Duke, Agbakoba

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.

”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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