TheCable

Simon Mwadkwon, senate minority leader, asked Dele Alake to recite the second stanza of the Nigerian national anthem, on the third day of screening of President Bola Tinubu’s ministerial nominees. 

However, his request was overruled by Godswill Akpabio, the senate president.

On July 27, Tinubu announced Alake and 27 others as ministerial nominees.

During the screening of the former Lagos commissioner of information and strategy, Mwadkwon asked him if he ever published a statement wherein he labelled supporters of a presidential candidate in the last election as “wild dogs”.

“You labelled supporters of a particular presidential candidate as wild dogs via social media,” he said. 

“Have you come across that statement? Are you aware of this? Did you say it?”

The barrage of questions elicited loud protests and murmurs from a section of the red chamber, before Akpabio doused the babbling and came to Alake’s rescue, dismissing the grilling as a “campaign issue”.

“Try and avoid campaign issues. We have moved to governance,” Akpabio said. 

“As a senator, your questions should be nationalistic and not partisan.”

Mwadkwon was not done, however.

He would proceed to ask Alake to recite the second stanza of the national anthem since he is likely to become “the image maker of the country” or minister of information.

Opeyemi Bamidele, the senate majority leader, countered the request, describing the senator’s demand as “irrelevant”.

Akpabio waded in and came to Alake’s rescue for the second time of asking, with the nominee looking visibly coy, a wry smile emerging from the corner of his lips.

“Even if you ask me as a senate president to recite the second stanza, I would do it off hand,” Akpabio said.

“It is expected that every adult in Nigeria has the stanzas in their hearts.

“We are here for serious business, to move this country forward and ask the nominees what they would bring to the table, to assist us to get out of the current hurdle.”

As of the time of filing this report, all of the president’s first batch of ministerial nominees have been screened. They will be confirmed at a later date.

Femi Gbajabiamila, chief of staff to the president, has just handed the second list of ministerial nominees to Akpabio for screening.