By Sola Onigbanjo

The chicken is coming home to roost. President Muhammadu Buhari is beginning to name appointees to sensitive positions. The implication of this is that we will begin to decipher the character of the administration from the background of the individuals that will be appointed   by the administration.

Dogara and Saraki

While many Nigerians are confident that the President who has taken so much time to make the appointments would have done due diligence and proper checks on the individuals, we still believe that other constitutional checks put in place by the system should be activated and made more potent, focused and effective to let us know more about the antecedents and suitability of the appointees.

After all, the drafters of our constitution, in their wisdom, have their reasons to believe that the principle of checks and balances as espoused by A. ,V. Dicey and others will serve us better. Thus, they called on the legislature to do a double check on those to serve in key executive positions, through what is now known as screening process.

It is against the above background that one believe that the Senate will get ready to perform their constitutional role, though with all sense of responsibility, whenever, Mr. Babatunde Fowler who was recently appointed as Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, appears before the upper legislative body.

As the proposed head of the nation’s revenue generation body, the Senate ought to really let us know the background of Mr. Fowler, what he represents, what he has done before in his past job and his qualifications. More importantly, Mr. Fowler’s most recent and important job is as Chairman of Lagos Inland Revenue Service (LIRS), the biggest state revenue agency in the country.

There is particularly the issue of the way he gave out consultancy contract for the collection of the state’s revenue to a firm. Yes, between 2005 and 2013 that he was in charge, Lagos State revenue jumped from N3.5 billion a month to N21bn. However, 15 percent of this N21bn which amount to N3.6bn is being paid to the company every month. That payment continues till today. And what services does this company provide? Just collation of receipts. What a lucrative job!

Fowler therefore needs to explain that we can trust him with the national revenue by convincing us that in the case mentioned he acted in the best interest of Lagosians. He needs to let all of us know that there was no iota of favouritism, nepotism and corruption in the deal in which a firm collects such huge amount on a monthly basis.

Perhaps, it is the fear that Fowler may be made to account for how he managed the resources of Lagos State and how differently he can handle Nigeria’s money that has made some politicians believed to be his sponsors to start waging a campaign aimed at intimidating, over-awing, compromising and suppressing the Senate so that members will not dare to ask the new revenue collector about Lagos.

Let it be known that Nigerians are behind the Senate in their bid to do a critical, clinical and correct grilling of political appointees. The era of bow and go,   business as usual and let my people go has gone. One of the best ways to manifest change which the All Progressives Congress (APC) promised us is for the Senate to make public officers transparent, responsible and   accountable to the people.

The leadership of the   Eight Senate has always claimed that it will do things differently and will be transparent. The Senate should not succumb to blackmail. It should refuse to bow to the wishes of one man. All efforts to intimidate it should be resisted and ignored. Those who are set to always label any attempt by the Senate to do its work efficiently as a move against Buhari should be ignored. The Senate will serve Nigerians better by unveiling those who want to be ministers, ambassadors and other heads of MDAs should be ready to submit to scrutiny.

This open screening, well focused and revealing screening should however not be reserved for Fowler alone. It should be extended to all appointees that will go for screening. The Senate should start creating a template or model for the future. After all, that is part of the lessons we should learn from the masters of presidential democracy, the United States.

Onigbanjo wrote from Ita Faji, Lagos