Headlines
Senate Screens 31 Ministerial Nominees, 12 to Go, Resumes Monday
The Senate on Friday screened seven more ministerial nominees forwarded by President Muhammadu Buhari.
They are former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami; former Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika; former Minister of State for Health, Osagie Ehinare and former Deputy Governor of Plateau State, Pauline Tallen.
Others are Muhammadu Dingyadi; Festus Keyamo and Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency, Ali Isa Pantami.
This brings the total number of nominees screened to 31 of the 43 sent by the president.
Of the seven nominees screened on Friday, two were given the traditional ‘take a bow’ treatment. They are Mr Sirika who was asked to take a bow on grounds of legislative background and Mrs Tallen, on grounds of gender.
PREMIUM TIMES earlier reported the number of nominees screened as at Thursday, as well as nominees who were told to take a bow and those who were grilled by the lawmakers.
The final nominees screened by the lawmakers were Mr Ehinare, Mrs Tallen, Mr Dingyadi and Mr Pantami.
Apart from Ms Tallen, the final nominees answered questions from the lawmakers ranging from health to technology as well as communications.
During his screening, Mr Pantami was asked if the Nigerian Communications Satellite should be privatised or commercialised.
According to him, he “will go for commercialisation.”
He said NigComSat has played a significant role in the country’s security architecture and “sadly, when you want investors to come, there should be tax holiday, when that is achieved, we can come up with some agreement how we can start benefitting.
While stressing the need for laws that will encourage investment, he said more funds should be voted for education.
After the screening process, the lawmakers reverted to plenary to report progress.
The Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, announced that the screening will continue next Monday and extend to Tuesday.
Nominees to be screened on Monday are Gbemisola Saraki, Goddy Jedy-Agba, Sulaiman Adamu, Maryam Katagum and Clement Agba.
Others are Geoffrey Onyeama, Muhammad Mahmoud, Babatunde Fashola and Rauf Aregbesola.
Also to be screened on Tuesday are Sabo Nanono, Lai Mohammed and Saleh Mamman.
Premium Times
Dr Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, the political adviser to President Bola Tinubu, has resigned his appointment.
Reports say the former spokesman of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) tendered his resignation about two weeks ago.
Further reports quoting presidency sources did not, however, provide details of the reasons for his decision, but only stated that it was on personal grounds.
Baba-Ahmed was appointed in September 2023 as Special Adviser on Political Matters in the Office of Vice President Kashim Shettima.
Over the past 17 months, he had represented the presidency at several public fora, including a recent national conference themed: “Strengthening Nigeria’s Democracy: Pathway to Good Governance and Political Integrity”, which held from January 28 and 29, 2025 in Abuja.
The Supreme Court has set aside the judgment of the Court of Appeal in Abuja recognising Julius Abure as the National Chairman of the Labour Party (LP).
In a unanimous judgment, a five-member panel of the apex court held that the Court of Appeal lacked the jurisdiction to have pronounced Abure National Chairman of the Labour Party, after finding out earlier that the substance of the case was about the party’s leadership.
The apex court held that the issue of leadership was an internal affair of a party, over which courts lacks jurisdiction.
The court further allowed the appeal filed by Senator Nenadi Usman and one other, and held that it is meritorious.
It also proceeded to dismiss the cross-appeal filed by the Abure group of the Labour Party for being unmeritorious.
In January, the Court of Appeal in Abuja reiterated that Abure remained the chairman of the LP.
A three-member panel of the appellate court, in a judgment delivered by Justice Hamma Barka, held that its judgment of November 13, 2024, which recognises Abure as national chairman, subsists and has not been set aside by any court.
Justice Barka made the declaration while delivering judgment in two separate appeals filed by Senator Esther Nenadi Usman and the caretaker committee and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The appellate court in the two separate appeals held that it did not delve into the issue of the leadership of the Labour Party because such issues are not justiciable.
It said that anything done outside jurisdiction amounts to a nullity. Hence, the judgment of the Federal High Court delivered on October 8, 2024, by Justice Emeka Nwite is of no effect because it was delivered without jurisdiction.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has denied being partisan in handling the failed recall of the lawmaker representing Kogi Central, Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan.
Rotimi Oyekanmi, the Chief Press Secretary to Chairman of INEC Mahmood Yakubu, who was on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Thursday, explained how the Commission handled the process.
“In the case of the Kogi Central District, we received a petition and a cover letter and of course what Nigerians were saying was that we were taking sides,” Oyekanmi said on the programme.
“But what happened was that in the covering letter, the representatives of the petitioners did not include their address as required in our regulations and guidelines and what we just did was to ask them to supply their address, it has nothing to do with the petition.
“And of course, there is nowhere in the law where INEC is asked to reject a petition just because the cover letter did not contain the address. So, there was no hanky-panky in what we did.”
Earlier on Thursday, INEC rejected the petition to recall Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan, saying that it has not met the requirements.
The electoral commission said the petition to recall Senator Natasha did not meet constitutional requirements.
Senator Natasha was suspended for breaching Senate rules, prompting some of her constituents to initiate her recall. They claimed the move was to ensure their constituency did not lack representation following the suspension of the 45-year-old senator.
Asked whether there could be a repeat of the recall process, the INEC spokesperson said the law did not specify if the process could be repeated and how many times.
“The law just talks about the threshold, the threshold meaning that if you want to recall, you must have, in addition to your petition, 50 per cent plus one signatures. The law did not specify how many times you can undertake that,” he said.
The lawmaker has made headlines in recent months after she accused Senate President Godswill Akpabio of sexual harassment, a claim the Akwa Ibom lawmaker has equally denied.
She was, thereafter, suspended by the Red Chamber for violation of its rule of conduct.
