President Buhari’s refusal and/or neglect to constitute his cabinet until after close to five months after his inauguration remains one of the biggest blunders of this government.
This clear misnomer created huge administrative gaps locally and cast our country as very unserious in the international community.
Sadly, our constitution has yawning gaps which could allow such strange approach to governance without running foul of the law as there is no section of the 1999 constitution which mandates the President or State Governors to name their ministers or commissioners within a specified time frame.
In a bid to bridge this gap, yesterday on the floor of the House of Representatives, Hon. Solomon Sloddy Adaelu (PDP Abia) moved a motion which seeks to alter Sections 147 and 192 of the 1999 Constitution making it mandatory for the President to nominate his ministers within his first 30 days in office for Senate confirmation. The same will be applied to State Governors who will be constitutionally mandated to also present to their States Assemblies, a list of their commissioners for screening.
This will help the serious business of governance to start in good time.
This bill, if passed into law will leave the President or Governors with no discretion on this issue, making compliance a constitutional imperative.
The Bill also seeks to make it mandatory for the President or Governors, while submitting names of ministers, to also indicate the ministries they will oversee as this will enable the Senate to do proper specific screenings in line with international best practices.
This motion received unanimous acclaim by the members with the Speaker committing it to the relevant House Committee for further legislative action.
Also yesterday, the House adopted a motion which called on the Federal Government to suspend its latest policy of banning the importation of vehicles through land borders saying that such policy will increase the suffering of Nigerians and making innocent citizens to pay for the incompetence and laxity of officials whose duty it is to secure our borders and ensure that adequate duties are by importers.
The motion, which was moved by Hon. Abdullahe Salame (APC Sokoto) said that a similar ban on rice has plunged the people into hardship with prices of rice now above the reach of the ordinary Nigerian. He decried a situation where such policies are implemented without giving the citizens credible alternatives, saying that this latest policy will make it impossible for the average Nigerian to own a car, owing to the poor state of the economy.
This motion was adopted by members via voice vote.
Also, yesterday, another motion on a bill which seeks to alter relevant sections of the 1999 constitution to allow each state to have control of natural resources in their states was also moved.
The motion was moved by the House Minority Leader, Hon. Leo Ogor (PDP Delta) is aimed at ensuring that states can have higher resource bases instead of waiting endlessly for allocations from Abuja every month.
Comments are closed.