Senate Ad Hoc Committee chairman on Media and Publicity, Dino Melaye, made the Senate’s position known to correspondents yesterday.

According to him, the senators are awaiting the ministerial list and as soon as they get the list, they will start working expeditiously and judiciously on it.

He said: “Screening of the ministerial nominees will no longer be business as usual. The era of take a bow is gone; we will make sure all the nominees will be screened irrespective of political, ethnic and regional considerations.”

Also in his welcome address to senators, the Senate president, Bukola Saraki, appealed to his colleagues to ensure that once the ministerial list is submitted, they should ensure that they treat it with dispatch and thoroughness.

He said: “We await the list of ministerial nominees this week. I believe the presence of ministers will create the space for greater policy engagement with the executive arm of government and enable us to begin to respond in a more systematic manner to the various economic and social challenges before us, especially through our various committees that will also be constituted soon.

“On this note, I want to urge you, all my colleagues, to ensure that what is uppermost in our minds as we begin the constitutional task of screening of ministerial nominees is the overall interest of our country, informed by the enormity and the urgency of the challenges before us.

“We must not be held down by unnecessary politicking. The enormity of our national challenges at this time does not give room for pettiness or politics of vendetta.”