Senate President Bukola Saraki yesterday received the first set of names of would-be ministers to be screened by Senators.
The list was presented to him after plenary at about 5pm by the President’s Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari and Senior Special Assistant (SSA) on National Assembly Matters (Senate) Sen. Ita Enang.
The Senate president confirmed receipt of the ministerial list on his verified Twitter account yesterday.
“I can now confirm that I just received the list of ministerial nominees”, he tweeted.
The list was submitted in a sealed envelope by Kyari and Enang.
The spokesperson to the Senate president, Yusuph Olaniyonu, said: “Dr. Saraki, following the tradition of the Senate, decided that the envelope will remain sealed till Tuesday October 6, when during the plenary sitting of the Upper legislative chamber, it will be opened and the list read to Senators”.
But The NATION is reporting that key leaders of the All Progressives Congress, former Senators, technocrats and ex-governors are on the list.
Prominent APC chieftains said to probably be on the list include the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, former Minister Audu Ogbeh; Southeast APC leader and former Governor of Abia State, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu and Director General of the Buhari campaign organisation and former Rivers State Governor Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi.
Other names presented for senators’ screening are former Governors Babatunde Fashola (Lagos), Kayode Fayemi (Ekiti); former Chief of Army Staff Lt.-Gen. Abdulrahman Dambazzau and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) Mr. Abubakar Malami.
Three women – a former Ogun State Commissioner for Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun, Senator Aisha Jummai Alhassan and Mrs Amina J. Mohammed, Special Assistant to UN Secretary General on Post-2015 Development Planning are also ministerial nominees.
Mrs Mohammed previously worked for six years with former President Olusegun Obasanjo as Special Adviser on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Incidentally, Mrs Adeosun’s name is also on the list of commissioner-nominees sent to the Ogun State House of Assembly yesterday by Governor Ibikunle Amosun.
Others said to be on the list are Senator Hadi Sirika, a pilot, who represented Katsina North in the senate between 2011 and 2015. He was elected on the ticket of Buhari’s former party, the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and a former Anambra State Governor and former Senator, Dr. Chris Nwabueze Ngige.
There are also Solomon Dalong and Ibe Kachikwu, the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), who is likely to be Minister of State for Petroleum since Buhari has announced himself as oil minister.
Osagie Ehanire, Udoma Udo-Udoma, Ahmed Isa Ibeto, Sulaiman Adamu and Ibrahim Jibril are also on the list, according to sources.
Source: The NATION, Informationng