The Senate has begun the screening of the ministerial nominees whose list President Bola Tinubu submitted on Thursday last week.
The screening started around 1 pm as the senator did not form the required quorum to start plenary.
The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, then announced that the Senate had formed a quorum. Hence, the commencement of plenary.
Akpabio said the screening will not be in any particular order.
The first nominee to face the senators is from Edo State, Abubakar Momoh who read his profile.
Being a former member of the House of Representatives, the senators asked Momoh to take a bow and leave, which he did.
The next to be screened was former governor Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, who told the senators that Tinubu would not regret making him a minister.
“Every day I was commissioning projects. Mr President will not regret nominating me as a minister,” he said.
According to Senator Mpigi Barinada (PDP, Rivers), over 5 million people from the state supported Wike’s ministerial nomination and urged his colleagues to free him.
Akpabio said the Senate didn’t ask Wike too many questions because his records were with the Senate having been screened before as a Minister.
A voice vote passed Wike, and the Senate President asked him to take a bow and go.
Then came the nominee from Benue state, Professor Prof Joseph Utsev, who also read his profile. The Senators then began to ask him questions.
Utsev was asked if he knows anything about water harvesting for reuse, especially for irrigation. The nominee said he had conducted several researches in the matter
Senators spotted a certain error in his CV and they asked him to explain why he was in primary school at the age of three.
According to his biodata which stated that he was born in 1980 while he graduated from primary school in 1989. He however said he was four when he started Primary school.
Former Internal Affairs minister Senator Abba Moro, rose to the defence of Utsev, saying the discrepancies were a result of typographical errors. He, therefore, asked the Senate to confirm him.
Following this development, Akpabio asked Prof Utsev to again look at his CV in case there were typographical errors.
Sen Titus Zam (Benue) also defended Utsev after raising a point of order, saying there were no discrepancies about the qualification of the nominee. He said the record was in order.
Another Senator from Benue, Emmanuel Udende said the Professor has done so well in all his assignments, saying the Senators should pass the nominee notwithstanding the “minor mistakes” in his records.
The screening continues as at press time.
