• As Saraki Begins Consultations
• Senate Anxious To Redeem Image
FOLLOWING intense pressure mounted on the Senate leadership over the screening and confirmation of President Muhammadu Buhari’s 21 ministerial nominees, the Senate President has opened the door for wider consultation within and outside the National Assembly on how best to handle thorny issues arising from the President’s request.

The hard positions taken by some senators, especially the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) against the confirmation request were among considerations that informed Saraki’s decision to resort to urgent consultation, which some Senators have described as extraordinary and unprecedented.

It was still not clear ‎as at yesterday whether the Senate would waive some of its stringent conditions for any nominee.
At its closed-door executive session, last Thursday, the Senate resolved to subject the confirmation of the nominees to the requirements of the constitution, the law, Senate Standing Rules, as well as the unwritten conventions of the upper legislative chamber.

The urgent need to boost the image of the Senate, which is widely believed to have allowed political considerations to dominate past confirmation of ministerial nominees, is behind the sudden uncompromising position of some senators.

But in a move dictated by unknown motives, Saraki began a consultative “reach-out” strategy, to get the feelings of selected stakeholders on the best approach to the issues thrown up by the President’s request to confirm the nominees, late last week.

A source said the move might be aimed at getting a middle of the road approach to the stringent measures being advocated by many senators and the pressure from many stakeholders to get the rule waived for some nominees.

Prominent among the knotty issues is the difficulty in parleying PDP senators, who are insisting on rejecting the President’s list, on ground that it is incomplete, and as such, has failed to meet the requirements of the constitution.

The other problem is how to handle the convention of the Senate, which requires that a nominee must get the support of at least two senators from his state in order to be confirmed.

But reacting to questions on possible motives behind the consultations initiated by Saraki, a PDP senator from one of the South South states, said: “Consultations are not bad on any matter. But what is uppermost in the minds of many senators now is the desire to ensure that the laws, including the constitution and the Senate rules and conventions are not compromised in the exercise. Nigerians voted for change and indeed the Senate should be seen to be in the vanguard of the drive to realise that positive change. For once, the right thing must be done, irrespective of whose interest is injured.”

Another Senator from the South East cautioned the Senate leadership against any move that could send the wrong signals to Nigerians regarding the intentions of the House.
“It cannot be true that the Senate leadership is lobbying to have the standards lowered or waived for some of the nominees because this could have its deadly consequences on the Senate, individual senators and the Senate leadership itself,” he said.

It was learnt that following the opposition of senators from Rivers State against the nomination of former Governor Rotimi Amaechi, the Presidency had initiated a move to have Amaechi meet the senators. The move, it was learnt, had not yielded fruit because the two parties were yet to buy into the idea.

Senator Thompson George Sekibo (PDP, Rivers State) had on Wednesday submitted a petition to the Senate against Amaechi‎ who is among nominees yet to be sighted at the National ‎Assembly to submit his resume, as directed by the Senate, last week. The deadline on the submission of those personal documents expires tomorrow.

So far, nominees who have submitted resumes are Senator Chris Ngige (Anambra State); Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu; Lt. Gen. Abdulrahman Dambazau (Kano State); Audu Ogbeh (Benue State); Senator Udoma Udo Udoma (Akwa Ibom); Engineer Suleiman Adamu (Jigawa); Dr. Osagie Ehanire; and Ibrahim Usman Jibril.