Update On The Allegations Against Buhari's New Ministers

Information from a source indicates that no fewer than 25 petitions have been submitted by some disgruntled individuals and groups seeking to stop the clearance of some ministerial nominees.

At the office of Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions 25 petitions had been submitted so far. The details:

Apart from the petition against former Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi, which was submitted by the three senators from Rivers State to the senate president on Wednesday, another senator representing Kaduna South Senatorial District, Danjuma La’ah, submitted his on Thursday against the nomination of Mrs. Amina Mohammed from Kaduna State.

La’ah wrote on behalf of the Southern Kaduna Coalition, an amalgamation of all the pressure and public interest groups of Southern Kaduna extraction. Mohammed’s accusers said she was not from Kaduna.

The petition, signed by the group’s coordinator, James Kanyi, read in part, “We have credible evidence to believe that she is an indigene of Gombe State and not Kaduna State as constitutionally required.”

Eleven of the ministerial nominees were however at the National Assembly on Thursday to submit their Curriculum Vitae ahead of next Tuesday’s screening.

Deadline for submission of the CVs, according to the Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Ita Enang, is Friday.

Saraki on Thursday asked the committee of the Senate currently investigating the petitions against the nominees to submit its report before the screening starts next week.

Meanwhile, the Rivers State chapter of the APC has disagreed with the Senate new rule that a ministerial nominee must get the support of at least two senators from his state to scale through screening.

The spokesman for the APC in Rivers, Mr. Chris Finebone, said that something was wrong with such a rule on the screening of ministerial nominees.

Finebone explained that a ministerial nominee did not need the support of any senator to be confirmed.

The three senators from Rivers State are all members of the PDP. Amaechi is of the APC.

Calling on the Senate to forget about such criterion, Finebone recalled that Musiliu Obanikoro, who was from an APC state, but a member of the PDP, was able to scale through and became a minister.

He said, “I am sure that there is something wrong there; there is something not correct there. I know we have had cases where, for an example, Obanikoro never got the support of any senator and he scaled through. So, there is something I suspect that is not right there.

“Beyond Obanikoro, we have also had other examples where ministerial nominees never got the support of senators from their states and they scaled through. How about states where the senators are all from the opposition party? Does it mean that the Federal Government would surrender to the opposition?

“I don’t think it has been happening in the past. There were places where the senators were from the opposition, yet the Federal Government got its ministers not from the opposition party.

“The Senate should forget about such a rule because in the past it never came to play. I want to be sure that it is a new thing they have invented. But it does not work that way; it will not work that way. I don’t want to also believe that the rules are changing with some persons in mind.”