Uproar In Senate As Ekweremadu Attacks Buhari Over New Appointments

A rowdy session erupted in the Nigerian Senate on Thursday after a new letter of appointment by President Muhammadu Buhari was read on the floor of the upper legislative chamber by Senate President, Bukola Saraki.

President Buhari had sent the letter containing the names of new appointees into the Board for the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA).

In the letter, the President sought Senate’s confirmation of Mr Tunde Lemo, a former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), as the new Chairman of FERMA.

Buhari also nominated a new managing director and six members into the agency’s board.

The names of the nominees are – Nurudeen Rafindadi; Buba Abdullahi; Babagana Aji; Shehu Abdullahi and Loretta Aniagolu.

Others are Mujaidu Dako; Vincent Kolawole; Chukwunwike Uzo; Olubunmi Siyanbola; Abdulrazak Ma’aji; Saidu Abdulkadir and Peter Osawe.

But raising a point of order against what he described as continued “lopsided appointments” by President Buhari, the Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, accused the president of concentrating his appointments on specific regions of the country.

Although the president noted in his letter that the six geopolitical zones of the country were represented in the new board’s appointment, three other South-East Senators – Chukwuka Utazi, Mao Ohuabunwa and Obinna Ogba‎ – backed Ekweremadu’s point of order that the appointments were unbalanced.

The South-East Senators, therefore, urged the Senate President to suspend the nominees screening pending an investigation by the Senate Committee on Federal Character.

The Senate Majority Leader, Ahmad Lawan, however, disagreed with the South-East Senators, saying the president balanced his appointment “if you look at the larger picture.”

Saraki ruled that the screening will be suspended pending the outcome of the investigation into the South East Senators’ claim by the Senate’s Federal Character Committee.