By Ben Agande
ABUJA—The Senate yesterday hastily stood down the confirmation of members of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, following allegations that the screening of the chairman and members of the commission was done by the chairman of the Senate Committee on Power, Senator Nicholas Ugbane, without input from other members of the committee.

The senate was set to consider the report of the committee on power chaired by Senator Ugbane yesterday when a member of the committee, Senator Kanti Bello, raised a point of order pointing to the irregularity.
Ugbane, who represents Kogi East, is currently standing trial over N6.3billion rural electrification scam.

Raising the point of order, Senate Chief Whip, Kanti Bello, stressed that some of the nominees cleared by Senator Ugbane did not have certificates to back up their claims, adding that for that reason, other members of the committee refused to append their signatures on the report.

“I am a member of the committee, we agreed to use seven  days for the screening, in fact I suggested the seven days, we got to a particular nominee and we discovered that even though she claimed she was an engineer, she did not have primary school certificate, she did not have secondary school certificate and she did not have higher education certificate, not even an NYSC certificate, and this is not right because we did not come back to look at the case of that very nominee, there was no meeting.

I did not sign the report but I am surprised at this report and I am of the opinion that this report be sent back to the committee for a thorough job” he said.

The President of the Senate, Senator David Mark who appeared in ahurry not to allow the matter drag on directed that the report be returned to the committee for a thorough work.

While observing that  eight members of the committee did not sign the report except the chairman,  senator Ugbane senator Mark told the committee chairman “senator Ugbane we have had this kind of confusion on this floor and I don’t want it to happen again, it does not matter what happened, just go back and meet even if it is this afternoon, so that all the members of the committee would look at the report and sign, that is my ruling on this matter, just take the report back”.

It would be recalled that senator David Mark had relieved the chairman of the senate committee on communications, Senator  Sylvester Anyanwu over similar allegations that he single handedly  screened nominees for appointment into the board of Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).