The screening of ministerial nominees and their likely conformation by the Senate today encountered a hitch yesterday when two of the nominees were apparently dropped due to high-stakes political games between the Presidency and some power brokers.
Former Minister of National Planning Dr. Shamsudeen Usman, who was billed for screening by the Senate yesterday, had his name skipped by Senate President David Mark and sources later told Daily Trust that he had been dropped from the list. However, Usman’s special assistant Malam Ujjudud Sheriff said last night that they expect the former minister to be screened this morning. Similarly, Daily Trust learnt that the ministerial nominee from Taraba State, Alhaji Umaru Aliyu, had been dropped in favour of Dr. Obadiah Ando. Also yesterday, Acting President Goodluck Jonathan nominated former Minister of State Health Dr. Aliyu Idi Hong to serve again as minister from Adamawa State.

Dr. Shamsudeen Usman was the only renominated minister who was not screened yesterday, even though Senate President Mark announced on Monday that the returning ministers would be screened first. Reliable sources at the Senate later told Daily Trust that Dr. Usman, the nominee from Kano State, was dropped from the list by the Acting President in response to protest from the camp of former governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, which nominated Kwankwaso’s former deputy governor Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje as a replacement. Their argument was that Usman is a technocrat and not a politician and is not in touch with the PDP structure in Kano state.

Daily Trust also learnt last night that the ministerial nominee from Taraba State, Alhaji Aliyu Umar, was dropped at the insistence of Lt General T.Y. Danjuma, chairman of Jonathan’s Presidential Advisory Council. Umar, a director in the National Boundary Commission who hails from Jalingo Local Government area of Taraba State, was nominated by Governor Danbaba Suntai, but Danjuma and his supporters said he is from the northern zone of Taraba state, and not from the Southern zone where former Science and Technology minister Dr. Hassan Bako Zaku hails from.

Aliyu has been replaced by Dr. Obadiah Ando, a former PDP governorship aspirant from the Southern part of Taraba state. Ando sought to fly the PDP’s flag in the 2007 governorship polls but lost at the primaries.

Although no official explanation was given for Umar’s replacement, a source said Danjuma was unhappy over Governor Suntai’s nomination of Umar after promising him that he would field Danjuma’s preferred candidate. The source told Daily Trust that following the spate of protests, Governor Suntai was forced to make retreat by replacing Umar with the new nominee, Obadiah Ando who is Danjuma’s a political godson.

Chief Press Secretary to Governor Suntai Malam Hassan Mijinyawa, when contacted last night, said that there were “issues raised over” Umar’s nomination. He promised to call back after consulting with his boss, but did not do so.

Meanwhile, the Senate will today confirm new ministers after concluding the screening of all 39 nominees so far sent to it by Acting President Goodluck Jonathan, Senate spokesman Senator Simon Ayogu Eze (PDP, Enugu North) told Daily Trust last night.

Twenty six nominees have so far been screened while the remaining 13 nominees are to face Senate today, after which consideration and confirmation or rejection of each of the nominees will be done.

Senate screened 23 nominees yesterday, including nephew of ailing President Umaru Musa Yar’adua, Alhaji Murtala Yar’adua and nine reappointed ministers in the recently dissolved cabinet.

Before commencement of the screening exercise, Senate went into an hour’s closed door session where it was agreed that only three senators are allowed to put questions to each nominee in order to fast track the process.

Daily Trust gathered that the Acting President had through Senate President David Mark pleaded with senators to fast track the exercise to enable him swear-in the new ministers tomorrow.

Speaking when he appeared before the Senate, former minister of state for petroleum Odein Ajumogobia said deregulation of the downstream petroleum sector has become inevitable in view of global economic realities.

He said, “Today we are exporting crude oil in its primary state and import refined products when the value has been added. Therefore we are exporting jobs. I think that is the most important aspect of the deregulation argument. Unless we deregulate, we will not be able to attract the investment necessary. Since we started talking of deregulation and since I became in charge at the end of last year, at DPR, we had numerous applications for refineries because they believe that government is going to deregulate. I think that is the greatest justification apart from the fact that we can’t afford it, government can’t afford to spend N687 billion as we spent in 2009.

As long as new refineries are not built, we will find that the subsidy will keep increasing because our consumption keeps increasing and our capacity will decrease. The next will be that one day we will be faced with a situation where we don’t have anything to spend.”

While answering questions put to him by senators, Murtala Yar’adua said he is bringing youthful agility to the cabinet, saying “The energy of youth is very important. Around the world, a lot of industrialists and senior people running conglomerates are actually our age mates. A lot of our friends and colleagues are in private industry and I believe that I can draw a lot of experience and advice and new ways of doing old things. There is nothing wrong with the way things have been done; I think energy is what we need.”

He commended the ongoing banking reforms saying “I think we have been very lucky with the emergence of the new CBN Governor. I believe the situation was caught quite early, I believe if the CBN hadn’t come to intervene we would have been in a worse, situation. The global meltdown has affected us; there were a lot of bad investments by the executive managers of the banks. The boards and regulators had failed the shareholders, basically. The AMC which the legislature has passed is going to be very helpful. This will release a lot funds to the banks.”

On his part, former minister of state power, Arc. Nuhu Somo Wya (Kaduna) explained the factors that worked against attainment of 6000 megawatts of electricity promised by the Yar’adua administration last year.

“I am not trying to put blame to anybody; I am just trying to say that we did rehabilitate our plants and got up to 5200mw available generation capacity as at the end of December, last year. But we had stranded facility of 1500 megawatts due to inadequacy of gas. This inadequacy of gas cannot be blamed on a single source. We know the challenges we went through, they are challenges of security, vandalism, challenges of inadequate funding contributed to some of the issues that militated against our achievement of 6000 megawatts,” Somo Wya said.

Other nominees that faced the Senate yesterday include former national planning minister, Senator Mohammed Sanusi Daggash who apologised to his former colleagues for the frosty relationship between his ministry and the Senate when he was in the cabinet.

Former minister of state for finance, Aderemi Babalola (Oyo), former minister of transport, Ibrahim Isa Bio (Kwara), former minister of mines and steel, Diezani Allison-Madueke (Bayelsa), former minister of state for Commerce and Industry, Humphrey Abbah, former minister of youths development, Senator Akinlabi Olasunkanmi and former minister of environment, John Ogar Odey were among those screened yesterday.