The Senate has explained the reasons for not grilling former federal lawmakers who are ministerial nominees of President Bola Tinubu during their screening ahead of confirmation by the Red Chamber.
Leader of the Senate, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, who gave the explanation at the beginning of the screening on Friday, said since the serving lawmakers knew the antecedents and capacity of the nominees who are former parliamentarians, it would amount to a waste of time to subject them to thorough grilling.
According to him, “This practice of ‘bow and go’ privilege extended to legislators is a global practice, not limited to the Nigerian parliament.”
Senator Bamidele said the explanation has become necessary so as to correct the public impression that the Senate was not grilling the nominees as promised, but only allowing them to appear and leave the chamber after introducing themselves.
It would be recalled that the Red Chamber, through its spokesman, Senator Yemi Adaramodu (APC Ekiti South) had promised to carry out thorough screening on all the nominees by abandoning the usual ‘bow and go’ tradition.
“The screening is going to be thorough. It is not going to be a situation where the screening will be anyhow. We are going to know the background of the nominees and we are not going to disappoint Nigerians.
“It is not going to be a shallow screening. You must have the character, you must have the face, you must have the behaviour to be among the cabin crew that is going to fly to Nigeria.
“This time around, Nigeria is going to be better. Whoever gets to the floor of the Senate will be screened. We will not manufacture any questions,” he told journalists during a press briefing.
“But many Nigerians, who didn’t know the workings of the parliament, wondered why the Red Chamber jettisoned its promise of thorough screening and sustained the ‘bow and go’ tradition”, he had said.