The Executive on Wednesday said it was yet to be officially informed by the leadership of the Senate about the confirmation of 43 ministerial nominees sent to the upper legislative chamber last week Tuesday.
Senior Special Assistant (SSA) to President Muhammadu Buhari on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Senator Ita Enang, told reporters that more than 24 hours after the confirmation of all the nominees, the Senate had not communicated the development to President Buhari.
According to him, the President is expecting official communication from the National Assembly to enable him inaugurate the Ministers-designate and assign ministries to them.
“The President upon receipt of the communication from the National Assembly, will on a date he will fix and notify the screened and cleared nominees and inaugurate them as appropriate.
“You are saying that the President should have attached portfolios. I am sure from 1999 to 2019, this question has been asked. This means that the question has been asked for the past 20 years.
“The constitution says the President shall appoint persons as ministers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria subject to confirmation of the Senate. The constitution did not oblige the President or a governor to attach a ministry or a portfolio in his nomination to the legislature.
“The reason is that the candidate is screened and cleared as a Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, he is not cleared as a Minister of Education or Minister of Health or Industry.
“Portfolios may change and the structure of government may not be the same as it were. When a minister is screened and cleared, he is assigned a portfolio. It may arise in the course of his assignment, the President or the governor may decide to reassign him to another ministry at that time if you assign and the person is screened and in respect of that portfolio, that means the President may have to send the name again back to the Senate for screening or for confirmation.
“That is why the constitution did not make it mandatory to assign portfolio while sending it to the legislature. Therefore the President has not done anything wrong.”
