Nigerian Senate's ministerial screening is a joke — one change can fix it

<p>The National Assembly needs to create a more rigorous system for screening ministerial nominees.</p>, <span>Senate President Godswill Akpabio (left) and his fellow senators have conducted a ministerial screening that's painfully unsatisfactory Tope Brown</span>, <h2>There was one moment during the Senate's screening of President Bola Tinubu's ministerial nominees that underscored two important problems with how parliament screens members of the president's cabinet.</h2>, <p>When he made his appearance before the Senate for possible confirmation of his nomination, Bello Mohammad, a former Sokoto State Assembly lawmaker, faced four questions from senators.</p>, <p>The first question concerned the welfare of Hajj travellers, on the presumption that he'll eventually become the Minister of Foreign Affairs; the second question presumed he'll become the Minister of Defence; and the third question was about energy, presuming he goes on to become the Minister of Power.</p>, <p>This unfocused line of questioning affected most of the other nominees except in a few cases where the profile of the nominee was an overwhelming indication of where they'll end up.</p>, <h2>Why this is problematic</h2>, <p>The first problem is no one inside that Senate chamber, neither the senators interviewing the nominees for an important job nor the nominees themselves, knew exactly what they were doing there. Like all presidents before him, Tinubu submitted a list of ministerial nominees without clearly stating the specific ministries he intends to assign them.</p>, <p>The second problem is the entire set-up of the process itself is, to put it delicately, a mess.</p>, <p>Nominees are typically screened by a Committee of the Whole which involves all 109 members of the Senate. For this week's screenings, senators from the states of the nominees begged their colleagues not to question them, or wasted time praising them to the high heavens.</p>, <p>Without getting into all the other messy pitfalls of this loosely-defined screening, this structur