The Presidency
Wednesday said it was yet to be officially informed by the leadership of
the Senate about the confirmation of 43 ministerial nominees sent to
the upper legislative chamber last week.
Senior Special Assistant
(SSA) to President Muhammadu Buhari on National Assembly Matters
(Senate), Senator Ita Enang, told reporters that more than 24 hours
after the confirmation of all the nominees, the Senate had not
communicated that to President Buhari.
According to him, the
President is expecting official communication from the National Assembly
to enable him to inaugurate the ministers-designate and assign
ministries to them.
“The President upon receipt of the
communication from the National Assembly, will on a date he will fix and
notify the screened and cleared nominees and inaugurate them as
appropriate.”
He explained that the President did not assign
portfolio to the list of ministerial nominees because the constitution
of the country did not ask him to do so. “You are saying that the
president should have attached portfolios. I am sure from 1999 to 2019,
this question has been asked. This means that the question has been
asked for the past 20 years.
“The constitution says the president
shall appoint persons as ministers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria
subject to confirmation of the Senate. The constitution did not oblige
the President or a governor to attach a ministry or a portfolio in his
nomination to the legislature.
“The reason is that the candidate
is screened and cleared as a minister of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria, he is not cleared as a Minister of Education or Minister of
Health or Industry.”
“Portfolios may change and the structure of
government may not be the same as it were. When a minister is screened
and cleared, he is assigned a portfolio. It may arise in the course of
his assignment, the president or the governor may decide to reassign him
to another ministry at that time if you assign and the person is
screened and in respect of that portfolio; that means the president may
have to send the name again back to the Senate for screening or for
confirmation.
“That is why the constitution did not make it
mandatory to assign portfolio while sending it to the legislature.
Therefore the President has not done anything wrong.”
Enang also
revealed that the president had assented to two new bills including the
Federal University of Agriculture, Zuru in Kebbi State bill and the
Architects Registration Council of Nigeria Amendment bill According
to him, “The (first bill) is converting the Federal college of
Agriculture, Zuru in Kebbi State to a full-fledged university with all
the powers and authorities of a university, with all the principal
officers of the university from the Chancellor down to the staffers and
from the date thereon, there is now established the Federal University
of Agriculture, Zuru in Kebbi State.
“The Architects Registration
Council of Nigeria Amendment bill has also been assented to and what
the bill is about is that it has increased fine or penalty from the
N1000 it used to be to N500, 000 in appropriate places and generally
enhanced the power of Architect registration process, so this bill is
now law and it is an offence to go against it.”
The SSA also
defended Buhari’s declining of assent to the upgrade of Adeyemi College
of Education, Ondo to a university while assenting to the upgrade of the
Federal College of Agriculture to a university.
“When a bill is
received by Mr. President, he looks at the content of the bill; he looks
at the technical issues of the bill and if all is correct on the bill,
he assents to it.
“When he doesn’t assent to a bill, he will
state the reason that he has not. Some could be drafting issues, some
could be question of duplicity in section of the bill, some could be
questions of conflict with the constitution, some could be any question
which is normally stated.
“Therefore the two bills I have
mentioned, just assented to qualify on the basis of these technical
reasons, others which may not yet be assented to something is being done
to send them back to the legislature through an appropriate channel so
that they can be attended to.”
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