11 Ministerial Nominees Submit Incomplete CVs

The Curriculum Vitae (CV) of 11 of the 13 ministerial nominees, who are seeking the confirmation of the Senate for appointment into the Federal Cabinet, which were submitted to the Senate by President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, are not complete.
The discovery was made yesterday by the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Gas, Senator Osita Isunazo (orlu Senatorial District) during the screening of the nominees in the Committee of the Whole Senate.
Isunazo, while asking one of the nominees, Mr. Sani Mohammed Ndanusa questions, observed that only him (Ndanusa) and the nominee from Zamfara State, Hon. Ikra Aliyu Bilbis, had complete CVs with all the certificates cited attached.
The Upper House, also reversed itself, less than 24 hours after assuring Nigerians that it would conduct rigorous screening, by asking two of the four nominees that it screened yesterday to “take a bow and go.”
Those screened were a Third Republic Senator, Ibrahim Kazaure; Director-General of National Agency for Foods and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Professor Dora Akunyili; Bilbis; and Ndanusa.
Both Kazaure and Bilbis, who were in the House of Represe-ntatives in the ill-fated Third Republic, were granted the privilege as former members of the National Assembly of being asked to take a bow and go without being asked questions.
However, Akunyili and Ndanusa were subjected to a series of questions during the exercise that was stepped down due to the inauguration of the National Assembly Joint Committee on Constitution Review (JCCR).
The screening will continue on Tuesday, next week, with nine pending nominees slated to appear in the Committee of the Whole Senate.
But in granting Kazaure, who appeared first before the Senate, the privilege of taking a bow and going, some Senators had tried to extract a pledge from him that he would be dedicated to the Upper House.
The Senators’ action was informed by the quiet face-off the Senate had with the former National Planning Minister, Senator Sanusi Daggash, who was accorded the privilege, but later antagonised the Senate over budgetary matters.
Senate President David Mark intervened with a declaration that former Senators who are accorded certain privileges by the Senate should be good ambassadors by representing the upper chamber of the National Assembly with facts.
According to him, “We know he is a colleague and we know we have a convention. That is not in doubt.”
He allowed the Deputy Majority Leader Victor Ndoma-Egba (SAN) to make a few observations.
Ndoma-Egba said: “Our distinguished colleagues we have a convention here that Senators who are nominated by the executive arm enjoy certain courtesies when they come here.
“And I believe that you are entitled to this courtesy, but we had a recent experience that one of us who came before us and enjoyed the courtesies that are attached to him by being one of us went back and trained his guns at us.
“We know that your primary loyalty as a minister will be to Mr. President, Commander-in-Chief. But we just want to satisfy ourselves, when you become a minister will you like our colleague under reference also train your guns at us? If you will, will you tell us what is wrong with us?”
The Senate President interjected, saying, “Senator Kazaure, as you will well understand, that was a very fair question. Fair as the question is, I want to overrule it. And I will tell you why I want to overrule it because it couldn’t be any fairer than that.
“I think the main thing is to note that, this is also your constituency and if you go, we want you to represent us with facts, not fiction. I think that is the main thing we would like to get out of that because that is truly the issue.
“The courtesy we are extending to you is because we believe that you are a distinguished Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and as a Minister our credibility is also at stake in the way you do your own business.
“We would want you to excel if at the end of the day you are confirmed. Excel among your colleagues so that we can be proud that as a Senator you have also distinguished yourself.”
Mark then asked the leave of the senate to allow Kazaure to take a bow and go.
But Akunyili, who was grilled by the Senate, said that she believed that politics should not override public interest and said she would try her best to manage political undertones the way she had been able to manage them at NAFDAC.
She said she would maintain a cordial relationship with the senate through good performance, stressing that her work would endear the Senate to her.
She told the Senate that NAFDAC had succeeded in reducing the incidence of counterfeit drugs in the country from 75 per cent to about 10 per cent.
Akunyili assured the senators that the agency would be able to reduce the war against fake drugs to a minimum of five per cent if the war against fake drugs was sustained.
In response to another question on the issue of honesty in the agency, she replied, “I cannot be in NAFDAC all my life. We had a team and worked as a family in NAFDAC. It is not a credit of an individual. We worked to reduce counterfeiting of drugs in the country. In an organisation with over 2000 people, I cannot say or swear that there are no corrupt people but it has been reduced to the barest minimum.”
The last nominee to be screened, Ndanusa, said in response to a question, that there was a need for the country to develop its Sports policy to inculcate in the nation’s youths the love for sports.
He said his love for sports got him involved in the activities of the Tennis Federation of Nigeria.
But the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Media and Information, Senator Ayogu Eze, pointed his attention to minor mistakes in his CV, saying they portrayed him as someone without a knack for details.
Eze stated: “You are aware that the job of a Minister is the job of an administrator and therefore this job requires somebody with an eye for details, a man who is able to identify the small prints. I have looked at your CV, well there is no pagination but going from where you have. First of all I want to ascertain and be sure that you authorised the publication of this CV. Did you?”
Ndanusa answered: “Yes.”
Eze said further: “I have looked at the areas where you listed some board appointments and there are a lot of small, small snips which actually task your attention for details. If you look at number one, ‘I have served or still serving’ and I think you wanted to write ‘I have served and I am still serving’ and then you passed it.
“Member Committee on Reorganisation of Niger State Sport Council and I am sure you wanted to write Sports Council and you passed it on. Then, member Marketing Committee of the Confederation African Tennis where you wanted to write of African Tennis.
“These are just few things that task the attention for details of our leaders, but I hope that when you get into your office maybe in the anxiety to get certain things done that you won’t skip certain details that will impede your performance as a minister.
“I also want to ask you to recite the national pledge.”
But Mark interjected again, saying, “Sorry, Senator Ayogu Eze, I thought that you actually rounded off your question since when you started all these corrections on his CV, I thought you had finished your question. But I think the issue of reciting the pledge in my very candid opinion is not very necessary.”
Eze agreed with the Senate President, saying, “Your Excellency I stand corrected as advised.”
The Senate will on Tuesday resume the screening of the remaining nine nominees namely: Dr. Ibrahim Yakubu Lame, Dr. Shettima Mustapha, Dr. Sam Egwu, Dr. Rilwanu Lukman, Mr. Nuhu Somo Way, Mr. Ibrahim Isa Bio, Professor Babatunde Osotimehin, Senator Bello Jibril Gada and Alhaji Jibril Maigari.