Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Chieftain and former Delta State governorship aspirant, Chief Sunny Onuesoke, has faulted the president’s and governor’s nomination of ministers or commissioners for screening in the National Assembly or House of Assembly without attaching their portfolios.
Onuesoke described the action as archaic during a chat with journalists, arguing that the idea behind nominating ministers or commissioners without attaching their portfolios was retrogressive.
He posited that the fact that portfolios were not assigned to the nominees is a drawback, making the process at the Senate a somewhat blind screening.
He wondered, querying how a nominee can be grilled for competence without knowing his intended assignment.
“If we are as serious as our problems deserve, the prospective ministers and their respective ministries ought to be known a few weeks after the results of the presidential election.
“It is an unusual practice and I am not sure it is still done in any serious democracy that appoints ministers and send them for clearance without assigning portfolios to them. This is a culture that we have continued to practice in Nigeria.
“In the United States, those who are nominated already know their portfolios. You do not appoint someone before allocating the portfolio. I do not know where we got this retrogressive idea.
“The lawmakers should know which ministry a nominee is going to so that their questions will be tailored to the assignment in that ministry,” he advised.
The PDP chieftain pointed out that the situation of screening the nominees generally makes it difficult for even members of the public to assess the suitability or otherwise of those that were nominated.
He stressed that screening them generally would not bring out the quality of services they could render if eventually cleared, adding that at the end round pegs could be placed in square holes.
“As a matter of fact, they screen people for the wrong reasons. For example, when Babatunde Fashola was screened in 2015, those who screened him felt he would be taken to the Ministry of Justice and, so, he was drilled on legal-related matters.
“Several others were screened based on their profession, but the reverse turned out to be the case and it is the same thing that is being repeated.
“If at the end of the day, they are placed in ministries that have nothing to do with their profession or areas of competence, the Senate would not have done thorough screening,” Onuesoke argued.
Onuesoke, who traced the nonperformance of most ministers or commissioners to misplacement of professional qualification, revealed that the only country in the world that sends ministerial nominees to Senate without portfolio is Nigeria, describing the culture as a “grievous failure that has been accepted as a norm.”
He, therefore, advised that the only way to get the right candidates for the job is to attach portfolios, stressing that otherwise, the screening would amount to mere entertainment.
READ ALSO FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE
