Senate to screen Wike, El-Rufai, Umahi, 25 other ministerial nominees Monday

The Senate says it will on Monday begin the screening of the 28 ministerial nominees presented by President Bola Tinubu.

The spokesperson for the Senate, Adeyemi Adaramodu (APC-Ekiti), disclosed this while addressing journalists after the list of the nominees was read in the upper chamber on Thursday.

Mr Adaramodu said although the Senate was not supposed to sit on Mondays, “we have suspended all our rules for them to commence the exercise next Monday.”

He assured that the screening would be thorough because the lawmakers were aware of the high expectations of those who would assist Mr Tinubu in fulfilling his mandate and the constitution.

“The Senate is going to examine the character, personality, experiences, the background of every nominee, and we believe at the end of it, Nigerians will not be disappointed,” added Mr Adaramodu. “We expect that the Federal Executive Council (FEC) that will be constituted after the screening is going to be the one that will breathe oxygen into the comatose economy of Nigeria.”

The Senate spokesman noted that to satisfy the expectations of Nigerians for “high-velocity” performance, “we will ‘eyemark’, not earmark the performances.”

He said there would be no time allocation for any nominee, and “if a single nominee takes up to three hours or a whole day, so be it.”

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On allegations about some nominees like former governors with EFCC cases, Mr Adaramodu said all the nominees had gone through security screening checks from the executive.

“However, if there is any red flag raised, we will look into it. Nigerians will never be disappointed by the 10th Senate,” added Mr Adaramodu.

Meanwhile, with the screening commencing on Monday, the annual recess of the National Assembly, which would have begun on Thursday, has been put on hold till after the exercise.

(NAN)