Follow Us on Google
From Fred Itua, Abuja
Senator representing Edo South, Neda Imasuen of the Labour Party (LP), has said poor handling of background checks on ministerial nominees before they were sent to the Senate for confirmation was responsible for controversies.
He said if the presidency had done its due diligence, the embarrassment would have been avoided.
Imasuen stated this during an interactive session with Association of Edo State Journalists at the National Assembly complex, Abuja.
The Senate, on Monday, withheld confirmation of Nasir El-Rufai, Stella Okotete and Abubakar Danladi over security screening.
El-Rufai is immediate past governor of Kaduna State; Okotete, from Delta State, is Executive Director, Business Development, Nigerian Export-Import Bank while Danladi was deputy governor and later governor of Taraba State.
Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, said the three had to undergo security screening from relevant security agencies before their appointments would be confirmed.
Imasuen told newsmen that the drama would not have come up because, “there are steps towards the final announcement of who becomes a minister.”
He said: “The first step starts with the president, who has the prerogative to nominate a candidate. So, the first step of screening starts from that very level. And the president has all he needs to screen any candidate. The EFCC is under him, the police is under him, all the necessary tools he needs to screen them are under him. We don’t have that at the National Assembly.
“So, at the point the president looks at an individual and nominates that individual, the screening process start at that level. He should go through these agencies first of all, who should go back to him and said this is what is it and for this reason, we cannot recommend this person for appointment. They missed it at that point.”
Imasuen explained that the Senate was handicapped and had no knowledge of allegations leveled against some of the nominees apart from El-Rufai, who was known to have performed credibly well as a minister of the FCT, but at the same time had questions to answer about his efforts to end the killings in Southern Kaduna and some unpatriotic utterances he allegedly used in some videos published online.
He said all they had in their possession was the CVs of the nominees. He said there was no way the Senate could have known all about the nominees.
“That ought to have been done in different level before it came to us. I think we should take that again and say that before the president nominates, perhaps it should come with the necessary clearances for us to also review. Because if we had those clearances there, we are in the better position to say yes, this person has been cleared.”
