AFTER HOURS of grandstanding and efforts to halt the screening of Festus Keyamo, SAN, the immediate past Minister of State for Labour and Employment and a Delta State ministerial nominee, the Senate caved and screened him yesterday.
Following a proposal by the Deputy Minority Leader, Darlington Nwokocha, LP, Abia Central, and Enyinnaya Abaribe, APGA, Abia South, to withdraw Keyamo’s screening, the Senate was called into a closed session for almost three hours.
The Red chamber, which had earlier been thrown into a raucous session, returned after a three-hour break.
Keyamo was inspected at the end and asked to take a bow and leave.
This was after he apologized before the Senate and revealed that the list of recipients of the N52bn Public Works project was available for inspection.
He was then told to go sin no more.
The Senate began yesterday’s screening with Dr. Mariya Mahmoud Bunkure, former Commissioner for Higher Education in Kano State under Governor Umar Ganduje.
Senator Godswill Akpabio, President of the Senate, then asked that a suitable motion be moved to pardon Keyamo, and the Chief Whip, Senator Ali Ndume, APC, Borno, moved the motion to forgive Keyamo.
This was seconded by Barinada Mpigi, PDP, Rivers South East.
Earlier, before he was screened and ordered to take a bow and leave, senators were divided, resulting in a raucous session.
The trouble began shortly after the nominee introduced himself and read his resume, just as he was telling the Senate that he fought for the Senate’s rights and that he went to court and won a case to have the Upper Chamber confirm the appointment of service chiefs, when the Deputy Minority Leader, Senator Darlington Nwokocha, LP, Abia Central, rose at 1.37pm to raise a point of Order.
Nwokocha’s point of order concerned a case in 2020 involving the public works initiative, in which N20,000 was allocated to 1000 Nigerians in each local government area.
Nwokocha, who cited section 88( 1b) of the 1999 constitution as amended, reminded Keyamo of the fact that he accused the National Assembly of being corrupt and wanted to hijack the process of disbursement of N 52 billion.
He said: “Subject to the provisions of this constitution, each house of the National Aseembly shall have powers by resolution to publish in its journal or in the official gazette of the governme t of the Federaltion to direct or cause to be directed an investigation into any matter or thing to which it has power to make laws b) the conduct of the affairs of any person authority, ministry or government depatment charged or intended to be charged with the duty of or responsibility for executive administering laws enacted by the National Assembly and disbursing or administering money said to be appropriated by the National Assembly.
“I want to bring to the notice of this house an issue that came up in 2020 and that issue was the public works programme which we all welcomed with opened arms because it is something that will help our people.
”Today, we are talking about paying N8000 to people to alleviate poverty. Then, it was N20,000 to 1000 persons across the 774 local governments, which my local government is part of, and I am sure your own local government also.
“At a point, we thought it was our responsibility because if some people can use the instrumentality of law which they found themselves within their confines to advance for all their justices, we use the instrumentality of the legislature to support our people and the populace which we represent.
”At that point, being a subject of controversy and public debate which we wanted to know and possibly give him fair hearing about what happened to our constituents, so we invited him to come and tell us, what the structure is.
“When he (Keyamo) was invited, what we are talking about is a N52billion appropriated by the National Assembly and the right of appropriation resides on the legislature. That is our right, the right of oversighting resides in us.
Senator Nwokocha, enraged, argued that the Senate would not tolerate a scenario in which government officials were not held accountable and moved a resolution requesting that the screening of Keyamo be halted.
Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, APGA, Abia South, seconded the motion, stating that the candidate had rejected the Senate and House of Representatives summons on the public works program.
The Senate was then thrown into a raucous session, and Senate President Godswill Akpabio put the subject to a voice vote.
Akpabio was hesitant to consent to a division (a division means that each senator votes separately).
The Senate then went into a ten-minute closed-door session, after which the Senate president proceeded to the residence to meet President Bola Tinubu.
The agenda of the meeting was not made public, but it was gathered that the meeting was in connection with Keyamo’s screening and senators’ strong opposition to his screening being postponed until he explained why he ignored an invitation to him in the 9th Senate to explain how government social works were handled.
In response to his nomination yesterday, Keyamo praised President Bola Tinubu for making it happen, saying he had given up hope of sitting in the present administration’s Federal Executive Council.
He said: “My appearance here today (yesterday) can only be by the grace of God and by the special benevolence of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and I want to say a special ‘Thank You’ to him for giving me this rare opportunity to serve.
“In fact, why I said I give all the glory and adoration to God is that on Friday, when my name was announced on this floor, my bags and baggage were already packed with that of my family; we were going on a short vacation.
”I had given up any hope to be here when all of a sudden, they said my name has been announced.”
