Senate Threatens Not To Screen Ministerial Nominees Without Asset Declaration Forms

The Senate on Thursday released the criteria for screening President Muhammadu Buhari’s ministerial nominees. The screening is scheduled to commence on October 13.

Briefing journalists at the end of plenary, Chairman, Senate ad hoc Committee on Media and Publicity, Dino Melaye, said the upper chamber at its closed session agreed on hurdles to be scaled by the nominees before their eventual clearance.

Melaye explained that the senators insisted that each nominee must submit proofs of their asset declaration; must have their nomination approved by two senators from their states; and must have a clean bill of health from its public petitions committee, among other conditions.

Submission of asset declaration form was not included in the modalities for screening ministerial nominees in 2011.

President of the Senate, Dr Bukola Saraki, is currently on trial at the Code of Conduct Tribunal for alleged false asset declaration when he was governor of Kwara State between 2003 and 2011.

Melaye said, “We considered a number of issues that had to do with the approach and the procedure for the screening of the ministerial nominees. So, we developed two modalities for the screening of the ministerial nominees.

“The first criterion is using constitutional provisions as stipulated in the 1999 Constitution (as amended) as a fundamental procedure for the screening of ministerial nominees.