The Senate Ad Hoc Committee on the Rivers State Emergency Rule has commenced the screening of President Tinubu’s 17 nominees to reconstitute the Boards of key Commissions in the state.
These Commissions include the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission (RSIEC); Rivers State Civil Service Commission (CSC) and the Rivers State Local Government Service Commission (LGSC) whose boards were disbanded three months ago by the state’s Sole Administrator.
Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, Senate Leader made this known today during the screening of the nominees, declaring that all nominees have officially declared their assets before the Code of Conduct Bureau.
He also added that their assets declaration came on the heel of security clearance by the Department of State Services and the Nigerian Police.
The 17 nominees were all presented before the Senate committee by the Special Adviser to the President on Senate Matters, Basheer Lado, who divided them into three categories.
Bamidele who doubles as chairman of the 18 – member committee reaffirmed the Senate’s commitment to upholding democratic processes in the oil-rich state. “Let me quickly inform distinguished colleagues and members of the public that the nominees who are seated before us have gone through security screening by the various security agencies, including the Department of State Security as well as the Nigerian Police.
“And none of them had had any issue with security clearance, which is germane to what we are doing here. We will just be speaking to your CV because I will have no issues with security clearance.
“Members of the public are also to be told that we have also insisted that they should go through the constitutional requirement of going to do their assets declaration by the Code of Conduct Bureau, which they have also complied with.”
The Ekiti lawmaker also disclosed that once they finished the screening exercise, the results and recommendations would be presented to the Senate leadership at the next plenary.
“Finally, it is also for me to report that as a committee, we did not have any petition against any of the nominees who are here. So there is no inhibiting factor that would really prevent us from screening any of the nominees.
“The screening exercise itself is a process and all of these individual steps that I have mentioned are part of the process. Once we are done with this, we then make our recommendations to the Senate in plenary for the confirmation or otherwise based on our findings and recommendations,” he said.
President Tinubu’s Nominees include five names for the Rivers State Civil Service Commission – Dr Barikor Baribuma (Chairman), Lot Egopija, Ms Maeve Ere-Bestman, Mrs Joy Obiaju and Mrs Charity Lloyd Harry.
The Rivers State Electoral Commission has seven nominees – Dr Michael Ekpai Odey (Chairman), Mr Lezaasi Torbira, Prof Arthur Nwafor, Prof Godfrey Mbudiogha, Prof Joyce Akaniwor, Dr (Mrs) Olive A. Bruce and Prof Chidi Halliday.
While that of the Rivers State Local Government Service Commission has Israel N. Amadi (Chairman), Linus Nwandem, Lady Christabel George-Didia, Dr Tonye Willie Pepple, Richard Ewoh, Rear Admiral Emmanuel Ofik (retd) and Sammy Apiafi as members.
