President Bola Ahmed Tinubu
Tinubu sends another ministerial list today. The PUNCH has learned that President Bola Tinubu will send a new batch of cabinet nominations to the Senate for confirmation today.
According to a Senate source, the names will be announced either Tuesday night or extremely early Wednesday morning.
The names of the next batch of ministerial nominees will be read out at the plenary today, according to an exclusive source.
The screening of the 28 nominees submitted by the President will be completed today, according to the lawmaker, so that the next group can be screened.
“By Wednesday, the new set of nominees will be unveiled, so that by Monday, we will be through with their screening.
“We want to conclude with the screening before we go on our recess. We wouldn’t want a situation where we would go on recess and we would now start calling lawmakers to back to come for screening,” the lawmaker said.
The Senate had on Monday screened 14 out of the 28 ministerial nominees earlier submitted by the President.
On Tuesday, nine of the remaining 14 candidates were inspected. Those screened on Tuesday were Senator David Umahi (Ebonyi), Olawale Edun (Ogun State), Nasir el-Rufai (Kaduna State), Ahmed Dangiwa(Katsina State), Uche Nnaji (Enugu State), Stella Okotete (Delta State), Adebayo Adelabu (Oyo State), Ekperikpe Ekpo (CrossRiver State) and Hannatu Musawa(Katsina State).
During his screening, Edun, a finance expert, shared his thoughts on the country’s exchange rate.
On palliative sharing, Edun noted that Nigeria could achieve India’s feat, through the collection of Biometrics.
Adelabu, a former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, decried the lack of supervision and oversight of activities of the CBN by economic management ministries of the Federal Government.
During his screening, El Rufai stated, “The President’s vision is that we will not have power outages in this country within seven years.”
“The president is saddened by the fact that countries like Benin Republic, Niger, and Cameroon, our neighbors, have reliable electricity, yet we are unable to provide electricity to our households and businesses despite all of our resources and capabilities, and the quality of people we have as a nation,” he added.
Earlier, Senator Sunday Karimi of Kogi West spoke out against El-Rufai at the ministerial screening.
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 insecurity in Southern Kaduna.
He said, “Your performance in any office you find yourself in the country has been outstanding. In the Bureau of Public Enterprises, your record is there, in FCT as a minister, your record is there, and as two-time governor of Kaduna state, you did well.”
Raising up a brown envelope, Karimi further stated, “But, I have a very strong petition against you that borders on security, unity and cohesiveness of the Nigerian nation.
“And I think that the petition has to be considered in this screening exercise.”
Karimi then proceeded to lay the petition before Jibrin Barau, the Deputy Senate President, who was presiding over the screening exercise at the time.
Barau, in response, said, “I don’t know if you followed the normal process, but this is the opportunity for nominees to explain and showcase themselves, later we will come to confirmation and approval.”
Other senators commended El-Rufai, noting that the former governor was competent enough to be a minister.
Following that, the Senate postponed the consideration of ministry nominees until Wednesday..