By Henry Umoru, ABUJA

The Senate yesterday continued with the screening of ministerial nominees forwarded to it last week by President  Bola Tinubu for subsequent confirmation.

President Tinubu had last week made available to the Senate for screening and confirmation of twenty-eight nominees.

The Senate had on Monday out of the twenty nominees screened fourteen,  just as it listed fourteen nominees for the process in yesterday’s  Order Paper. 

Prior to the screening  yesterday,  the Senate  attended to the  presentation  of bills slated for first reading and they were eleven of such.

The fourteen nominees  listed for screening  today were David Umahi (Ebonyi); Adebayo Olawale Edun (Ogun); Nasir Ahmad El-rufai CON (Kaduna); Ahmed Musa Dangiwa (Katsina) Chief Uche Geoffrey Nnaji (Enugu); Stella Erhuvwuoghene Okotete (Delta); and  Dele Alake (Ekiti).

Others were Adekola Adebayo Adelabu (Oyo); Muhammad Idris (Niger); Professor Ali Pate Bauchi; Doris Anite Uzoka (Imo); Lateef Fagbemi SAN (Kwara);  Hon. Ekperikpe Ekpo Akwa (Ibom); and Barr Hannatu Musawa (Katsina).

At the end of yesterday’s  screening that started 12.49pm and ended 6.3pm, the Senate  stepped down the names odb  Dele Alake (Ekiti);  Muhammad Idris (Niger); Professor Ali Pate Bauchi; Doris Anite Uzoka (Imo); and  Lateef Fagbemi SAN (Kwara) to toaday( Wednesday).

Recalled that the Senate  on Monday screened the following  nominees:Sen.Abubakar S.Kyari – Borno State; Abubakar Eshiokpekha Momoh – Edo State; Nyesom Ezenwo Wike – Rivers State; Engr. Prof. Joseph Terlumun Utsev – Benue State; Sen. John Owan Enoh – Cross River State; Hon.(Bar) Bello Muhammad -Sokoto State; Mohammed Badaru Abubakar – Jigawa State and Amb.Yusuf Maitama Tuggar – Bauchi State.

Others were  Senator Abubakar Sani Danladi – Taraba State; Barr. Uju-Ken Ohaneye – Anambra State; Hon. (Dr). Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo – Ondo State; Dr. Betta C.Edu, Cross River State:  Imaan Sulaiman Ibrahim – Nasarawa State; and Honourable  Nkiru Onyejiocha, Abia. 

First to appear for screening  was the former Ebonyi  State Governor  and the present Deputy Senate  Majority  leader, Senator David Umahi, who enjoyed the support of his colleagues to take a bow according to parliamentary tradition, just as Stella Erhuvwuoghene Okotete, Delta State,  Hon. Ekperikpe Ekpo Akwa (Ibom)and Barr, Hannatu Musawa (Katsina) also enjoyed the privilege  of take a Bow  and go.

When it was his turn for the screening,  Adebayo  Olawale  Edu  from Ogun  State who noted that Nigeria has no business being poor given the country’s vast human and natural resourcesm said that all that was necessary in Nigeria would be  a clear vision and commitment to set the country on the path of prosperity.

For more than one hour,  the Senate grilled Edun, taking him on a sundry issues of Nigeria’s tough economic challenges, came highly recommend-making him highly favoured to become Nigeria’s next Finance Minister.

Edun who noted  that he accepted the call to serve, however said that he would  re-enact the success story of Lagos when he served as commissioner in Tinubu’s cabinet then as Governor, just as he  welcomed fuel subsidy removal and the unification of Foreign Exchange even though he admitted that both policies have come with pains. 

Edun who was however optimistic that  the pains would soon give way for gains and sustainable economic development,  assured Nigerians that President Bola Tinubu is a democrat, who believes in the rule of law and due process, saying the President will not breach the constitution on Appropriation by spending unapproved funds.

Edu said, ” As former Commissioner of Finance, Lagos state. I have been highly privileged to have worked with others to help build enduring legacies and strong institution the then Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu ons, including the leading investment banking.

” Iam proud to be a part of the sterling success achieved under inspirational leadership of Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu in whose cabinet I served as Commissioner for Finance.
“Recall that Governor Tinubu took over at a very challenging time. He faced those challenges squarely, overcame them and was successful. I played my own part in the design, implementation of innovative, homegrown technology driven solutions that increased the resources available to government in revenue thereby giving the government the wherewithal to send on infrastructure, social services and of course, job creation.
“And there are parallel to this; these are challenging economic times and need to be confronted, rescued and defeated in effort to build a competitive economy.

“Aside from economics, I’m engaged in youth empowerment. I’m involved in international award for young people Nigeria, which forms Duke of Edinburgh Award. And haven been a national Amateur Boxing Champion during my student days, I hope you’re not too surprised at that. I haven taken great interest in working  with State Boxing Associations in Ogun and Lagos states to channel the energies of young people in the right direction. 

“In my view and in the view of many, Nigeria is too well blessed with human and material resources not to be successful. At the outset of the new administration, I’m hugely optimistic that success will come. On a personal note, success for me will be to retain a record of competence and integrity during my service. 

On the state of the economy, he said that  as recently as 1990, the GDP of Nigeria was higher than of China. Today the GDP of China is $ 13,000 while Nigeria ‘s is just a little over $3,000. You can see the gap. The reason is that production growth was stalled by insecurity, high inflation and wasteful government expenditures to a large extent.

However, he said that  in the last two months, there was  real turnvaround in the Nigerian economy, which gives room for tremendous optimism, just as he assured that there will be continuous improvement in the fiscal situation at the federal and state levels, which takes care of the debt situation, adding that owing is not a bad thing as long as you have the revenue to service it, adding, “it is the commitment of President Bola Tinubu to curtail spending, inefficiencies and also to stay within the law in financing government operations.”

When it was his turn, the immediate  past Governor  of  Kaduna  State, Mallam  Nasir El-Rufai who  proposed stringent measures in the electricity sector to help boost the sector, proposed an Amendment of the Electricity Act of 2023.

The stringent measures in the electricity sector to help boost the sector according  to him include hardline stance against those that bypass metering.

 El-Rufai who noted that the electricity supply situation in Nigeria has defied every government for 60 years, said, “Metering is a big issue, a lot of progress has been made by some of the Distribution Companies (Discos).

“In the last three or four years with the support of the CBN and the World Bank, every household should have been metered, every business should be metered.

“Estimated billings are not acceptable. But in addition, Nigeria must take a hard stance against those that steal electricity. 

“Those that get electricity by diverting cables; not paying, we must take a hardline stance against it if this sector is to work. 

“A lot of advocacy is necessary. People believe that water and electricity should be free, the social services, but they are not; they cost money to produce. 

“The least you can do is pay back for the cost of production and handing it to the private sector, they need some return on its investment over and above the cost of production.”

El- Rufai who  also raised the problem of distribution saying that in 2013 Discos were privatised, said, “We privatised our distribution companies, 11 of them; 60 per cent  to the private sector, 40 per cent to be owned by government.

“The idea is that the 40 per cent is supposed to be listed on the foreign exchange so that every Nigerian will be a shareholder in it.

“But that has not happened, 10 years after privatisation, the government is still subsidising electricity in one way or the other.

“The last time we checked it was about N1.6 trillion in the privatised environment. This is unsustainable and unacceptable.”

He, however, said that President Bola Tinubu was committed to ensure Nigeria has stable and reliable electricity supply, adding, “this is because without electricity, industrialisation is a pipe dream. Without electricity, even agriculture today is not a viable proposition. 

“So he is committed to that and he has asked me to work with him to address these problems. So I will do my best to address them.”

There was a petition-accusing him of stirring insecurity and creating imbalance and disunity in Kaduna state when he served as governor, even  as the senate blocked a petition accusing former Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai of being behind insecurity and creating disunity in the state.

Senator Sunday Karimi, APC Kogi West brought the petition against El-Rufai.

 while commenting on El- Rufai as a ministerial nominee, Senator Karimi said that “your performance in any office you served has been outstanding. Your record is there. In FCT as a minister your record is there and as a two-term governor of Kaduna State.

“I have a very strong petition against you that bothers on security, unity and coerciveness on the nation and I think that petition has to be considered along this screening exercise.”

Reacting, Sen. Sani Musa, APC, Niger East said that the nominee has credibility when it came to performance on every assignment he had undertaken for this country.

“And he is not different from any others that have performed in other places. 

“There had been two former governors that had been here and there was a precedence and that precedence as a convention in chambers like this should be sustained.

“And such, I want to propose that El-Rufai too should take his bow.”

Senator  Danjuma  Goje,  APC,  Gombe Central also corroborated Senator  Musa, asking that the nominee should take a bow and go.

While trying to respond to the petition, El-Rufai said “The distinguished Senator from Kogi who talked about a petition against me….

The President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio immediately interjected saying “Perhaps I should inform that I have received petitions from many other people in respect of other nominees but this is not where we are to deal with petitions.

“Our job here is to screen and then of course we can refer petition to where petitions will be dealt with.

“These are the nominees of Mr President. If it is something that is a formal petition before the Senate, we will look at it formally. But there are certain petitions we have to refer back to either the Presidency or security agencies to look at and that has nothing to do with us.

“I think at the time we are going into the issue of confirmation and approval, we will be so advised. So I will want to plead with my brother to take a bow.”

In answering  the questions  put to him by  the  Senators,  El- Rufai said, “The electricity supply situation in Nigeria has defied every government for 60 years

“President Asiwaju Ahmad Tinubu is committed to ensure Nigeria has stable and reliable electricity supply. Because without electricity, industrialisation is a pipe dream. Without electricity, even Agriculture today is not a viable proposition. So he is committed to that and he has asked me to work with him to address these problems so I will do my best to address them.

“Right now Nigeroa has about 13000mw of installed generation capacity but we hardly utilize more than 4000mw or 5000mws. So to improve generation, so our business is to look at what is constraining the full production of electricity from this 13000mw. We have 13000mw installed and only 4000mw/5000mw being produced. Many of the generation stations cannot produce because of poor supply of gas. 80% of our generation is from gas and the balave is hydro. The gas fired stations often don’t have supply of gas. Power stations that have been completed two or three years ago and have produced nothing because there is no gas supply

“So that is another young that we need to look into, we must ensure that gas and power are together under one roof for this issue of gas supply which has persisted for over 20years to be resolved. Even if we are able to generate 13mw as at today, our transmission infrastructure can only do 5000mw maybe 6000mw at best.

The second major constraint to electricity supply in Nigeria is Transmission infrastructure. We need to close the loop in our transmission system so that the 13 system collapses we had in 2022 are not repeated again in our history and this can be done. There is money to expand the transmission infrastructure, we just need to organize ourselves, remove politics from transmission Procurement and focus on improving our transmission infrastructure

“The third problem is distribution. In 2013 we privatized our distribution companies, 11 of them, 60% to the private sector, 40% to be owned by government, the idea is that the 40% is supposed to be listed on the foreign exchange so that every Nigerian will be a sharehkolder in it. But that has not happened, 10 years after privatization the government is still subsidizing electricity in one way or the other subsidizing electricity. As I said the last time we checked it was about N1.6tr in the privatized environment. This is unsustainable and unacceptable. But what do we do with the distribution companies, they are being privatized about 5 to 6 of them are under receivership, those that bought the companies borrowed from banks and have not been paying the banks. 

“They have taken over 5 or 6 of them. The last time we did a stress test for the distribution companies only the 3 of them out of 11 are doing well. So there is a lot of work to be done regarding distribution, because distribution to the last end of electricity does not work, if they don’t collect money, then they will not be able to pay for the power supplied by the generation companies and when they are unable to pay for the gas, it is what the government pays the risk guarantee enterd by the federal government of Nigeria and have to be addressed but in a short term the liquidity in the electricity supply company have to be looked at.

“Tariffs must be cost effective and even the ownership of these distribution companies will have to change because right now the banks own about 6 of them, they control 60% of the shares. Banks are not as business owners but they are good at taking whatever they need to recover their loans. So we intend if given the opportunity and work out a system in which perhaps we are able attract fresh capital, new investors with technical and financial capacity into the Distribution chains 

“The opportunity to do so exist but 6 out of the 11 are in receivership and 3 are doing well, the others are 50/50 but a holistic approach is needed. This is a problem that requires the support of everyone it is not the President who will lead from the front but also the National Assembly. Certain amendments in the electricity act 2023 may be needed. Certain amendment to the PIB 2021 may be needed to bring this sector to align so that we prove Nigeria stable and reliable Electricity. The President’s vision is that within the next 7 years, we will not have the problem of power failure in this country. The President is saddened by the fact that countries like Benin Republic, Niger and Cameroun our neighbors have reliable Electricity, you don’t see power failing in the less countries, yet with all our resources and the quality of people we have in this nation we are unable to provide Electricity for household and our businesses 
” I urge the National Assembly to be a partner to make this happen. There are many parts of Nigeria that are not covered by the grid, the new Electricity act provides the states with greater involvement now in the Electricity supply industry and what is happening in the world provides opportunity for Nigeria to attract a lot of resources into the renewable energy sector utilizing solar, wind and even nuclear and we are not ruling out using our own reserves to establish power station that will form the base for stability of the power sector. So all options would be look into.

“Metering is a big issue, a lot of progress has been made by some of the Distribution Companies in the last 3 or 4 years with the support of the CBN and the world Bank, every house hold should be metered, every business should be metered, estimated billings is not acceptable, but in addition, Nigeria must take a hard stance against those that steal Electricity. Those that get Electricity by diverting cables not paying, we must take a hardline stance against it if this sector is to work. A lot of Advocacy is necessary. People believe that water and electricity should be free, they social services but they are not. They cost money to produce. The least you can do is pay back for the cost of production and handing it to the private sector, they need some return in its investment over and above the cost of production. This was the intervention of the Electric power sector reform act of 2005 which this National Assembly enacted.”

On his part, Adekola Adebayo Adelabu,  the nominee  from Oyo State  said, “The independence of Central Bank of Nigeria,  CBN must be guaranteed, saying that the country must  must ensure that appointment of CBN governors are insulated from the Government, adding, ” At times what comes out of the CBN is minority opinion and the majority must always have their say.”