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From Fred Itua, Abuja
Senator representing Edo South Senatorial District Neda Imasuen (Labour Party) said the poor handling of background checks of ministerial nominees before they were sent to the Senate for confirmation was responsible for the controversies.
Imasuen stated this during an interactive session with the Association of Edo State Journalists in his office at the National Assembly complex, Abuja.
He said if the presidency had done diligent work beforehand, the embarrassment witnessed during the ministerial confirmation would have been avoided.
The Senate, on Monday, withheld the confirmation of Nasir El-Rufai, Stella Okotete, and Abubakar Danladi over security screening.
El-Rufai is the immediate past governor of Kaduna State; Okotete, from Delta State, is Executive Director, Business Development, at Nigerian Export-Import Bank; while Danladi was deputy governor and later governor of Taraba State.
Senate President Godswill Akpabio said the three nominees, who were not confirmed, 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.”
“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 are under him, and all the necessary tools he needs to screen them are under him. We don’t have that at the National Assembly,” he said.
“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 say this is what is it and for this reason, we cannot recommend this person for an appointment. They missed it at that point.”
Imasuen explained the Senate was handicapped and had no knowledge of the allegations levelled 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 has questions to answer about his efforts to end the killings in Southern Kaduna and some unpatriotic utterances he allegedly used in some viral videos published online.
According to him, all they had in their possession were the CVs of the nominees. He said there was no way the Senate could have known all about the nominees neither did the Senate have WAEC before it to clear allegations against persons with questionable credentials.
“That ought to have been done on different levels 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 a better position to say yes, this person has been cleared.
“One of the nominees who was allegedly barred for ten years said he has gone to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court has cleared him!. That is what he said. But we don’t have the Supreme Court in front of us. We don’t even know all that facts until people started asking those questions.
“The president would have been advised on what occurs in the Senate. And it’s left him to say based on some of the questions and some of the answers that were given, I will still put you forward or I will withdraw your nomination. Because he has the prerogative to nominate,” he explained.
