Senate to screen ambassadorial nominees

Members of the Nigerian Senate PHOTO: TWITTER/ NIGERIAN SENATE

The Senate declared on Wednesday that it would proceed with the screening and confirmation of the 47 ambassadorial nominees referred to it by President Muhammadu Buhari last month.

The resolution to proceed with the screening of the ambassadorial nomination followed the adoption of the report of the foreign affairs committee which investigated the allegation of lopsidedness ‎in the nominations.

The Senate had last month ‎asked its Committee on Foreign Affairs to investigate allegations of irregularities and breach of the Federal character clause in the constitution by the President in making the nomination.‎

But the senate in adopting the report of the committee ‎yesterday asked the President to hasten to submit to it the list of non-career ambassadors to balance the nomination
Other recommendations of the committee adopted are:‎

‎”that the President should be advised to expedite action on the submission of non-career nominees, which is expected to balance the perceived lopsidedness in the appointments. Moreso, in future nominations, the executive arm should be guided to see the logic of sustaining the previous practice of presenting to the Senate a combined list of both career and non-career nominees for confirmation;‎

“that the Executive arm should be equally advised to promptly commence the process of the selection of all nominees and other principal officers of government for an appointment, ahead of confirmation by Senate to avoid delays in governmental operations.

“the government is advised to sustain the recommendable compliance to gender representation and balance in the remaining nomination and any other one in the future with a view to giving the female gender the desired sense of belonging.”‎

Presenting the report before the Senate, Vice Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Shehu Sani, informed the Senate that the Secretary to the Government of the Federation to the committee that the President breached no rules in the nomination adding that nobody from the four states of Bayelsa, Ondo, Plateau and Ebonyi where petitions had come from met the criteria for selection.
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“‎The nominees were carefully selected on the basis of federal character, seniority, gender consideration, minimum of 30 months of service before retirement and competence”‎

“The submission from the SGF admitted that officers of Bayelsa, Ebonyi, Ondo and Plateau were not featured on the list because they did not meet the criteria for appointment.” The report declared.