Senate Confirms Buhari’s 43 Ministerial Nominees

By: Nneka Amaechi-Nnadi, Abuja

The Senate, yesterday, after five days screening exercise, confirmed President Muhammadu Buhari’s 43 ministerial nominees who appeared before it.
Those confirmed are Ikechukwu Oga (Abia), Mohammed Musa Bello (Adamawa), Godswill Akpabio (Akwa Ibom), Chris Ngige (Anambra), Sharon Ikeazor (Anambra), Adamu Adamu (Bauchi), Maryam Katagum (Bauchi), and Timi Sylva (Bayelsa).
Others are George Akume (Benue), Mustapha Baba Shehuri (Borno), Goddy Jedy-Agba (Cross River), Festus Keyamo (Delta), Ogbonnaya Onu (Ebonyi), Osagie Enakhire (Edo), Clement Agba (Edo), Adeniyi Adebayo (Ekiti), Geofrey Onyeama (Enugu), Ali Issa Fantami (Gombe), Emeka Nwajiuba (Imo), Suleiman Adamu (Jigawa), Zainab Ahmed (Kaduna), Mohammed Mahmoud (Kaduna), Sabo Nanunu (Kano), Bashir Salihi Magashi (Kano), Hadi Sirika (Katsina), Abubakar Malami (Kebbi), Ahmadu Tijani (Kogi), Lai Mohammed (Kwara), Gbemisola Saraki (Kwara), Raji Fashola (Lagos), Olorunnimbe Momora (Lagos), Muhammed Abdullahi (Nasarawa), and Zubeira Dada (Niger).
The rest are Olamilekan Adegbite (Ogun), Tayo Alasoadura (Ondo), Rauf Aregbesola (Osun), Sunday Dare (Oyo), Pauline Tallen (Plateau), Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers), Muhammadu Maigari Dingyadi (Sokoto), Saleh Mohammed (Taraba), Abubakar Aliyu (Yobe), and Sadiya Umar Farouk (Zamfara).
The President of the Senate, Dr Ahmad Lawan, had ratified the ministers’ nomination through a voice vote in favour of the nominees as he read out their individual names.
Meanwhile, a former Aviation Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode, yesterday, faulted the screening process adopted by the Senate.
He said the screening of some ministerial nominees by simply asking them to “bow and go” was “a display of comic relief.”
In a series of tweets, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain insisted that the current screening was a “pitiful joke.”
He tweeted: “When I was nominated to be a minister by OBJ 13 years ago in 2006, I was screened by the Senate for no less than two hours and 30 gruelling and very difficult minutes on live television. There is no question that they did not ask me, and there is none that I did not answer.
“In those days, the Senate had great men and powerful intellectuals in its ranks. What we see today in the name of ministerial screening is a pitiful joke.
“Smile, show your teeth, bow and go” is NOT screening: It is a crass display of comic relief which is far below the Senate”, he lamented.
Since the commencement of the screening, last Wednesday, the Senate had asked several of the ministerial nominees to take a “bow and go”.
The Senate refused to quiz some ministerial nominees because they were former lawmakers.