National Assembly urged to institutionalise screening templates for nominees 

An elections operations consultant, Oluwole Aguda, has called on the National Assembly to institutionalise templates for screening ministerial and other nominees.

Aguda said this is important because Nigeria recently lost an opportunity to assess a ministerial nominee, Bosun Tijani, on how he would salvage the country.

Speaking with The Guardian via telephone, the former governorship aspirant in Kogi State said it was regrettable that during the screening of Tijani, senators, rather than focus on issues, dwelt on angry tweets by the nominee.

Tijani had, on July 21, 2019, tweeted that he did not appreciate the Nigerian passport and Nigeria as a nation.

Aguda said: “Tijani, based on his extant experience, should have been tasked to present to the Nigerian people tenable solutions to issues that plague national development. I believe that the gentleman should also have been probed on what he would have done differently.

“In Bosun Tijani, we find easy access to understanding the operational challenges of running specialised business development clusters in Africa and pursuing understanding of what he would do to improve the Nigerian context. It also would have been an opportunity to present expert opinion and analysis on what obtains in other African countries, where he has established social empowerment projects at national scale.”

According to Aguda, Tijani indicated he was not a direct beneficiary of many of the interventions he introduced. “Should we not have had the opportunity or privilege to unmask his motivation for such? Should we not have asked how he hopes to navigate through a bureaucracy not known to use emails in official communication for most government agencies?” Aguda asked.

He added: “It remains a sad commentary that the entire screening was riddled by the personal expressions of the nominee in the past. While I commend the Senate for restraining perhaps more contemptuous outbursts from our youth in the future, I believe that we lost a prized moment to tap knowledge from what was obviously a very capable professional and gentleman.”