In its determination to hit the ground running, the Presidency has hinted that the ministerial nominees sent to the Senate for approval would commence work ahead of their parliamentary screening.
This was disclosed by the Chief of Staff to President Bola Tinubu, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila in an interaction with State House Correspondents after the submission of 28 nominees to the Senate for confirmation yesterday.
Gbajabiamila said most of the nominees have been around the President offering one advice or the other before their names were forwarded to the Senate. According to the former Speaker of the House of Representatives he had also made himself available to offer suggestions to the President before he was eventually appointed the Chief of Staff. Responding to a question on how soon the nominees would resume work after their confirmation, Gbajabiamila said: “As far as Mr. President is concerned, he has his cabinet.
I’m sure there will be those who will be working behind the scenes, giving him advice, you know, even now, before confirmation in anticipation of confirmation, because there’s no time to waste. So, they may not start fully officially until they are confirmed, but I’m sure they will still continue to contribute advice here and there to Mr. President. “Even I before I fully assumed officially my office as the Chief of Staff, I was doing some skeletal work and advising Mr. President as his presumptive Chief of Staff.
For all intents and purposes, work should start in earnest for them in the next week or two because I don’t see the Senate wasting too much time in the confirmation, not because they’re not going to do a thorough job, they will do a thorough job. But they will balance it with the knowledge that in this time that we are in time is of the essence.” On suggestion that the President should have attached portfolios to the nominees, Gbajabiamila explained that such should have been the ideal but “What happens then if you change your mind, do you then bring the person back for screening again?
“For instance, if I decide I want somebody as Minister of Labour, and then after setting the name, later on, I decide that, you know what, I didn’t know this about this person, this person would actually be better with another portfolio. And meanwhile, the Senate has screened that person for that particular initial portfolio. What happens then? So a lot of these things have their merits and demerits.”