Complaints of alleged lopsided appointments into federal boards and parastatals by President Muhammadu Buhari sharply divided Senators along the North and South political blocs in the country, thus throwing the Senate into a rowdy session.
For more than half an hour, the hallowed chamber, Thursday, temporarily turned market over alleged bias by President Buhari in his federal appointments, just as he was accused of favouring Northerners, particularly Katsina State extraction, his home state.
Subsequently, the Senate mandated its Committee on Federal Character and Intergovernmental Affairs, led by Senator Tijani Yahaya Kaura, APC, Zamfara North, to probe all appointments of the President as well as establish the alleged lopsidedness.
The committee, which was asked to carry out a holistic investigation into the appointments, taking into cognisance, adherence to federal character principle, rule of law, among others, will submit its report next Tuesday at the plenary.
Trouble was said to have sparked when Bukola Saraki, Senate President, who presided, read a letter from President Muhammadu Buhari, asking the Senate to screen and confirm appointments into the board of the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency, FERMA.
In the letter, which was read on the floor of the Senate by Saraki, President Buhari asked the Senate to confirm sTunde Lemo, former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, as chairman of FERMA; Engineer Nurudeen Abdulrahman Rafindafi as the Managing Director; Buba Silas Abdullahi; Babangana Mohammed Aji; Engr. Shehu Usman Abdullahi; Loretta Ngozichukwu Aniagolu; Mujaidu Stanley Dako and Vincent Oladapo Kolawale as executive directors.
The letter dated January 10, 2018, and received by the office of the Senate President on January 15, 2018, reads “In accordance with the provision of Section 2 of the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (Amendment) Act 2007, I forward herewith the nominations of a Chairman, a Managing Director and six (6) representatives drawn from each of the six (6) Geo-Political Zones as members of the Governing Board of the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency for confirmation by the Senate.”
Immediately the Senate President read the letter, Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, PDP, Enugu West, raised a point of order to challenge the appointments, stressing that most of the appointments of the current administration were not in line with the Federal Character Principle.
Ekweremadu read Section 14(3) of 1999 Constitution as amended to buttress his argument.
According to the section of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the federal character principle stipulates that “the composition of the government of the Federation or any of its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such a manner as to reflect the federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity, and also to command national loyalty, thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few state or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in that government or in any of its agencies.”
Ekweremadu, who picked holes in the appointment of chairmen of boards without recourse to federal character principle, with a particular zone of the country, the South East being neglected and marginalised, then urged the Senate to put on hold the confirmation process.
He also called for investigation into the alleged lopsided appointments, adding that he was not against any person, but the manner one part of the country had been so favoured.
Soon after Ekweremadu rounded off his remarks, the leader of the Senate, Senator Ahmad Lawan, APC, Yobe North, who also relied on a point of order, however countered the Deputy Senate President’s allegation, insisting that Ekweremadu did not look at the bigger picture before jumping into such conclusions.
Senator Lawan, who urged Ekweremadu to remove his mind from the narrow picture, however, asked him to look at all other appointments in other agencies before alleging that the Federal Character Principle was not followed in the appointments.
Senator Lawan said, “Whenever government sends in any request for confirmation of appointment, government does its home work very well. What the Deputy Senate President raised is not a complete picture. He has restricted his conclusion to a very few.
”If you go to the larger picture, that issue is not supposed to be raised in the first place. I am not from the South West part of Nigeria, let me be blunt. The issue raised is predominance but if we can have a larger picture, I’m sure we will see a balanced spread of appointments.
“So, I don’t want us to devote so much time looking at the very narrow picture of what government is doing with regards to appointment.”
Supporting Ekweremadu, Senator Chukwuka Utazi, PDP, Enugu North, aligned himself with his argument that the appointments of the current administration had been so lopsided, favouring a particular region of the country
At this point, the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, while trying to calm the situation, pointed out that observations by the lawmakers could only be considered as personal to those raising them.
He, however, mandated the committee on Federal Character to carry out a comprehensive investigation on the appointments of President Buhari, adding that when the committee submits its report, senators could then raise raise allegations, if it was established that there was need to do so.
Even with Saraki’s intervention, the senators were not persuaded, but continued with their arguments over the appointments.
While some backed Ekweremadu’s observation, others disagreed.
While Saraki was trying to calm frayed nerves of the senators during the rowdy session, Senator Obinna Ogba, PDP, Ebonyi Central, raised a point of Order still on the issue of lopsidedness in the appointments by the President.
Ogba pointed out that his state, Ebonyi, was shortchanged in appointments, adding, “Mr. President, distinguished colleagues, we cannot continue on this nomination. If you look at this, Ebony State’s slot is completely missing.”
While he was still speaking, there were moves by other senators to stop him, but he shouted at them, saying “are you the ones presiding, you cannot stop me from speaking.”
Another round of heated argument reared its head when the Senate president moved to begin the confirmation of the appointment of chairman and commissioners of the Federal Civil Service Commission when Mao Ohuabunwa, PDP, Abia North, raised a point of order, insisting that the Senate should suspend the consideration.
While speaking, some senators tried to stop him, but he told them the they do not have the monopoly to shout as he could also do that if the need arose.
Senator Ohuabunwa’s argument was that since the Senate had agreed to investigate all the appointments of the current administration, the confirmation should be stepped down until the Committee on Federal Character submits its report.
The Senate president, however, overruled him, saying the screening should continue, pending when the Committee on Federal Character submits its report.
He added that Thursday’s consideration of the Senate was not the final confirmation of the nominees, maintaining that before the appointees were confirmed, the Senate would have received the report of the Characters’ committee.
Saraki said, “We are just speculating; we are on the same page. Let us first get a document from Federal Character then we can take action.
”If the Federal Character Committee’s reports suggests that the Deputy President of the Senate is right, then we suspend the consideration.”
He, however, upheld that the screening of the Civil Service Commission’s appointees be continued and directed the Committee on Federal Character to conclude it investigation and report back to the Senate on Tuesday.
