The Senate, on Tuesday, continued with the screening of ministerial nominees for the second day, declaring that it will forward all petitions sent to it against the nominees, to the Presidency and security agencies.
Senate President Godswill Akpabio stated this during the screening of the nominee from Kaduna State, Malam Nasir el-Rufai.
The Senator representing Kogi West under the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Sunday Karimi, had announced that he has a strong petition given to him against el-Rufai.
According to the Kogi West Senator, the documented petition against el-Rufai bothered on the unity of the country.
Even though Senators Sani Musa and the three Senators from Kaduna State said el-Rufai should take a ‘bow and go’, the petition was submitted to the Deputy Senate President Barau Jibrin, who was at the time sitting as the Chairman of the Senate Committee of the Whole.
Barau said whatever the petition is, that is was an opportunity for el-Rufai to defend himself.
As el-Rufai made attempts to respond, there was disruption.
Senate President Akpabio had returned to his seat as the chairman and said that he received many petitions against ministerial nominees, adding that the Senate’s job was only to screen the nominees and send the petitions to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the security agencies.
Akpabio said: “they are nominees of the President. We will refer the petitions back to the presidency and the security agencies,” Akpabio said and asked el-Rufai to take a bow after his response to some questions from Senator Abdulazeez Yari.
Responding to other questions put across to him by some Senators, on how to tackle the lingering problems of the power sector in Nigeria, el-Rufai said the electricity supply and distribution and the issue of privatisation of DisCos in the country must be revisited, adding that even the Act regulating electricity must be amended.
el-Rufai, who said the issue of electricity supply has defied every President, added that Tinubu was committed to ensuring that Nigeria has a stable power supply within seven years.
“He has asked me to work with him to address this problem. Now, Nigeria has 13,000 megawatts, but we hardly use 4,000.
“It is as a result of poor supply of gas. There are power stations that are producing nothing because of poor gas supply which has existed for the past 20 years,” el-Rufai said, adding that transmission infrastructure loopholes needed to be blocked so that the 13 transmission companies can start working.
“We need to work on the transmission infrastructure. The third problem is distribution. 10 years after privatisation, the government is still paying subsidy on electricity.
“The distribution companies who borrow from banks and did not pay, the banks have taken over. Some of the distribution companies are doing well,” El-Rufai stated.
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