The Senate has started the process for the screening and confirmation of Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on social media Lauretta Onochie as Federal Commissioner for the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, said the exercise is a follow up to the request by the President for the approval of the appointment of Onochie and five other persons in accordance with Paragraph 14 part (F) of the Third Schedule to the 1999 Constitution.
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Lawan subsequently forwarded the list of nominees to the Committee on INEC; mandating it to begin the screening exercise.
The Senate’s decision to begin the screening comes 8 months after Buhari submitted the list for necessary approval.
Minority Leader, Enyinnaya Abaribe, however, expressed a few reservations that he and some other lawmakers had previously rejected the nomination of Lauretta and were surprised to see that her name was still on the list.
Most of the lawmakers in the opposition are not quite comfortable with Buhari appointing one of his own aides, who is a card-carrying member of the ruling All Progressives Congress as an INEC Commissioner.
Others on the President’s nomination list are Muhammad Kallah (Katsina); Kunle Ajayi (Ekiti); Saidu Ahmad (Jigawa), Sani Adam (North- Central), and Baba Bila (North-East).
The Committe on INEC has four weeks to report back to the Senate.
(Editor: Abaje Usekwe)
