The Senate on Tuesday continued with the screening of ministerial nominees. Nine of the nominees scaled the hurdle, increasing the total number of nominees screened so far to 23. This is even as there was a mild drama before the Senate allowed former Kaduna State governor Mallam Nasir El-Rufai “to take a bow ” and exit the Red Chamber.

Senator representing Kogi West, Senator Sunday Karimi, stood up to announce that he was in the custody of a petition against the nomination of the former Kaduna State Governor, which he noted bothered on far-reaching security and national unity issues.

He said: “Mr. President, I have a petition written against the nominee over the issue of insecurity in Southern Kaduna when he was Governor.

“If I am permitted, I will like to read the petition.”

He later presented a copy of the petition to the Deputy President of the Senate, Barau Jibrin, who was presiding following the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio’s brief exit from the Chamber.

Senator representing Niger East, Sani Musa, however, kicked against discussion of the petition as he noted that three former governors have appeared before the lawmakers and were accorded the privilege to take their exit without rigorous interrogation.

Senator Danjuma Goje, representing Gombe Central, spoke in a similar vein.

Senator Akpabio, who later returned to his seat, said the Senate could only receive the petition and dispatch to the relevant authority. He subsequently asked Mallam Nasir El-Rufai not to respond to the petition but take his leave.

The Senate President said, “This is not the place to consider petitions, we will sit with the petitions later and refer them to relevant authorities. Please, take a bow, my brother.”

Earlier, while responding to questions on solutions to prevailing challenges facing the power sector raised by former Zamfara State Governor and Senator representing Zamfara West, Abdulaziz Yari, the former Kaduna State Governor traced the problem in the sector to distribution, generation, and poor management by firms which took over the sector after its privatization.

He said: “I will take the questions on power asked by Senator Yari together because they are all connected. He asked about privatized Discos and the challenge of generation and distribution.

“It has defied every government for years, but the Tinubu administration is committed to addressing it because without energy, businesses can’t thrive, and even agriculture will be a pipe dream.

“Nigeria has 13 000 megawatts installed capacity. Why do we have 13,000 megawatts and only 5,000 megawatts produced? It is because of the poor supply of gas to the power stations. We must ensure that gas and power stations, they are together under one roof.

“The second constraint is the transmission infrastructure. We must ensure that we don’t have the system collapse again. To do that, we should remove politics from transmission procurement.

“Another is the transmission. Ten years after privatisation, the government is still subsidising electricity. This is unsustainable and unacceptable. Of the distribution companies, only three out of 11 are doing well. If the distribution doesn’t work, it becomes a major problem, and it has to be addressed.

“We must address this. The distribution must be cost-reflective. If given the opportunity, we must be able to attract fresh capital and investors into the distribution chain.

“A holistic approach is needed, we need the support of everybody, and we may need to amend the Electricity Act. The president’s vision is that within 7 years, we won’t have a power outage in this country. We should be able to have stable power for our households and our businesses. We must also stop estimated billing, every house should be metered”, El-Rufai said.

Former Lagos State Commissioner for Finance, Wale Edun, who was the second nominee to be screened, justified the removal of subsidy on petrol and the single foreign exchange regime.

On the harmonisation of forex, Edun expressed the hope that given the free flow of investment and remittances from crude oil earnings, the rate of Naira to the Dollar would be stabilised at N700 to the Dollar.

The commitment of Tinubu is to ensure that the poorest and the weakest are protected. The FG, state, and individuals have a role to play in protecting these bold fiscal measures of the Tinubu administration.

“For a country that has revenue flow from oil and remittances, there is no reason that it shouldn’t have a stable rate. Fundamentals don’t back the exchange you have now. What we have now is because of the corruption of the past.

“Government can raise revenue by creating a high investment profile and raising equity stakes. That is the solution to shortchange of liquidity in the system. It should not be beyond N700 to the $.”

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