ABUJA – Senate of the Federal Republic yesterday, suspended scheduled screening of recently nominated ambassadors by President Mohammed Buhari for want of transparency.
They therefore, resolved that “the minister for foreign affairs and the Secretary to Government of the Federation to appear before the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, to explain alleged omissions, irregularities and the processes by which some of these names came about”.
Responding to the various complaints against the list, presiding Senate President Bukola Saraki thanked Sen. Dariye and noted that “a number of senators, prior to this, have raised this observation and I too have received a lot of petitions in my office on this same matter”.
“I think it is very important to say on career ambassadors, we must ensure that the process is transparent especially, when they are going to be ambassadors.
The number of petitions we have received this time is a bit more than usual and it is important that the foreign affairs committee quickly invite the minister and Secretary to the Government of the Federation, so that they can explain the processes of how some of these names came about.
That can be done before they even begin to consider the nominee for screening. The matter is referred to Foreign Affairs Committee and we give them maximum, one week to be able to come with a Report on it”, he ruled.
When the matter came up for consideration, Sen. Joshua Dariye (Plateau) drew attention of the Senate to several omissions and unjustifiable nominations in the list.
He therefore urged that the matter be stood down until the grey areas wears cleared, by inviting the two officials of government to give insight into criteria used in picking the names.
Corroborating Sen. Dariye, Sen. Foster Ogolo (Bayelsa) lamented that Bayelsa State was totally omitted from the 47-man ambassadorial nominees list, and that the same was the appointment of Permanent Secretaries where Bayelsa was omitted.
In his contribution, Sen. Sola Adeyeye (Osun C.), noted that there was nothing to suggest that two officers from Plateau State who were bypassed in the nomination “have not been superb in the discharge of their duties”
“Two of them in fact are already on level 17 and in making the recommendations, many who are junior to them in experience and in status have been elevated above them.
They therefore want some intervention from the chamber to be sure that correct process is followed so that those who have served the Republic meritoriously do not get passed because of whatever might be the internal politics of the ministry; so I plead that relevant committee and this chamber would take a second look at this”, he submitted.
On his part, Sen. Shehu Sanni (Kaduna): “I am responding as the vice chairman of the foreign affairs committee.
Actually we have received series of complaints from different states on how skewed the list that were presented to us here from the presidency is. The complaints are so much to the fact that the credibility and integrity of that list is put to question”.
