After much horse-trading and rigmarole, the Senate on Thursday formally screened former Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, as a ministerial nominee.
His screening was however not without drama as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Senators said they could not ask him any question since the report of the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions which handled the petition against him had not been debated by the Senate.
Amaechi’s confirmation as a minister will now depend on how he will be able to muster majority support from the Senate next week when the process of confirmation would be thrown to Senators in a voice vote.
His main opponents among Senators are the PDP Caucus who are expected to make stiff efforts in overwhelming the ruling APC in a voice vote, as they demonstrated penultimate week when the spokesperson of APC, Alhaji Lai Muhammed, was to be confirmed.
The PDP Senators had raised their voices louder than necessary in shouting neeey… when the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, read out his name for confirmation, but the APC members drowned the PDP with louder shout of ayees..
The entry of Amaechi to the National Assembly sent the entire complex agog, as supporters and well-wishers struggled to catch a glimpse of him in open sympathy based on the media hype over plots to prevent his screening by political opponents.
The former governor even had a hectic moment in finding his way out of the National Assembly complex, even as staff of the Assembly abandoned their offices, mobbing him in the process in show of solidarity, all chanting, ‘Amaechi, you don win, you don win..”
He was eventually spirited out of the complex with combined efforts of security men and women who were on guard.
Amaechi’s screening had been scheduled twice and had twice been shifted amid political intrigues aimed at preventing his emergence as a minister, first from the government of Rivers State and the PDP caucus in the Senate.
Amaechi had hardly been invited for screening when the PDP shoed opposition to his nomination with insistence that the report of Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petition should be laid the Chairman of the Committee, Senator Sam Anyawu for consideration.
The Minority leader, Senator Godswill Akpabio had to this effect raised a point of order to raise issues against the screening of Amaechi, but he was countered by Senate Majority leader, Senator Ali Ndume, who explained that the report on petition against the former governor had already been laid, assuring that it would be distributed to senators for consideration.
Akpabio had said the opposition will not ask any question from Ameachi unless the report laid by the Committee is considered.
To avoid subjecting the screening of Amaechi to further intrigues, the Senate Leader, Ndume, moved a motion seeking to let go of the former governor who he said is also a former Speaker, urging the Senate to ask him to ‘bow and go’.
Responding to question on corruption allegation against him, the former Rivers State governor said he was never indicted by any panel on corruption while he urged the lawmakers to check the report of the Senate Panel on petition against him.
He also told the Senators that he had never taken bribe in his life.
When asked to define corruption, Ameachi said, “Corruption is very difficult to define. If you are a public officer people believe you must take bribe. I have never taken bribe in my life. But if they send a girl to you and you sleep with the girl and do her favour, you are corrupt.
‘’Corruption is a very wide concept. If people are contesting for a position and you offer your son, brother or sister an opportunity to hold that position, probably the person is not qualified, you are corrupt. So, it is difficult for me to define corruption’’.
He also said that he decided to join All Progressive Congress (APC) when he discovered that former President Goodluck Jonathan was not suitable for the task of developing Nigeria.
He said he and other members of APC felt the need to tackle corruption in Nigeria, a reason they supported the candidature of Muhammadu Buhari for election as President on the platform of the APC.
He said: “We sold to the public the fact that there was massive corruption in the system. And there was the need to fight that corruption. And the only way to fight that corruption is to put a new government. And we had to get a signpost candidate.
‘’The signpost candidate is a man who the Nigerian public has seen as an incorruptible President. And that was why the party had to put President Buhari forward. And we thought that there was a need to do things differently. I thought that as good as the former President may have been, I don’t think he was suitable enough to pursue the growth and development of Nigeria. So, we needed to offer opportunity to somebody we believe is better than the former President.”
Amaechi promised to complete the construction work on the East-West road which according to him is not just for the Niger Delta but an economic route but will catalyse the economic prosperity for Nigeria if completed.
After almost an hour of being drilled by Senators, he was eventually asked to bow and go.
However, other ministerial nominees screened along with former governor were Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, Cladius Omoyele Daramola Folorunso, Baba Shehuri Mustapha and Ocholi Enojo James.
Meanwhile, speaking before the former Rivers State governor appeared for screening, Senator George Sekibo, one of the senators opposed to his nomination, said the battle is not yet over.
Sekibo, who represents Rivers east in the Senate, said “screening and confirmation are two different things”.
“If the order paper says we should take him, we will take him,” Sekibo said before the screening.
“It is not my own individual position; the Senate position supersedes every other person’s position, so if his name is included in the Order Paper to be screened, he will be screened; we will not stop him.
“But the issue is not either to be screened or not to be screened. The issue is to be confirmed or not to be confirmed; they are two different issues. We cannot stop him from being screened but our plea is already before the Senate. I don’t want to repeat it, it is before the Senate. We have said it before the nation; it is in the court of the Nigerian people.
“The senators have the power to agree to what they want to agree to and to reject what they want to reject because it is not an individual matter, it’s not a personal matter, it’s a national matter.”
Reacting to Amaechi’s screening, the Rivers State chapter of All Progressives Congress, APC, expressed their heartfelt appreciation to Nigerians for the unprecedented support privately and openly expressed towards the successful screening of the former governor.
The APC in a statement signed by its spokesman, Chris Finebone, recalled that the screening of Amaechi became the foremost topical issue of political discourse in the past couple of weeks since his nomination, noting that with his eventual screening, the party believes that all lovers of the former governor, President Buhari and the APC would joyously put the suspense of the past days behind them and move on.
The APC thanked the Senators for carrying out their constitutional responsibility with candour, maturity and in line with the law.
“Again, we would like to state that we are overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and recognition for the former governor by all shades of the Nigerian populace and would like to assure everyone that Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi would continue to identify and fight for the interest of the ordinary Nigerian even as he becomes a Minister in the cabinet of President Muhammadu Buhari” the statement averred.
source-->Dailytimes.com.ng