The Nigerian Senate has said President Muhammadu Buhari was yet to submit his list of ministerial nominees for confirmation contrary to media reports.
The Senate Ad-hoc Committee Chairman on Media and Public Affairs, Senator Adedayo Adeyeye, who disclosed this during a chat with the Senate press corps, said the chamber is not in possession of any ministerial list.
He assured that the Senators are anxious to work on the ministerial nominee list and screen all nominees immediately names of nominees were presented by the President who has the constitutional duty to do so.
“We cannot keep the list, if the list is transmitted to the President of the Senate, it will be read immediately. We are too eager; like I have told you we want to hit the ground running.
“This is an activity that is not within our control and there is nothing we can do about it. Like I said here two or three days ago, this matter is not within the control of the Senate.
“We cannot generate the list on our own; the constitution does not permit us to do that. The constitution has assigned responsibility to various part of government, and it is the prerogative of the executive to nominate ministers which will then be confirmed by the Senate.
“Until that duty is undertaken by the executive there is nothing we can do about that. Whether we are hopeful or not is neither here nor there.”
The pressure on the Senate may have been necessitated by an earlier statement credited to the President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan. He was quoted during plenary as saying the list could be released before the end of the week.
Vigil360 gathered that though the leadership of the National Assembly was hosted to a dinner on Thursday night by the President at the State House, the President failed to release the list as anticipated. Rather he said he was under pressure to release the list and assured that he was taking his time to make the appointment since his first cabinet was made up of people he had no knowledge of.
