Before the Code of Conduct Bureau, the 17 candidates that President Bola Tinubu nominated to lead the operations of the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission, Rivers State Civil Service Commission, and Rivers State Local Government Service Commission formally declared their assets.
The assets declaration followed on the tail of security clearance by the Department of State Services and the Nigerian Police.
The Leader of the Senate, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, made this known during the screening exercise by the Senate ad hoc committee to oversee the activities of the Rivers Sole Administrator, Vice Adm Ibok-Ete Ibas (retd).
The development comes barely one week after President Tinubu transmitted the names of nominees to the Senate for confirmation.
The five nominees for the Rivers State Civil Service Commission are Dr Barikor Baribuma (Chairman), Lot Egopija, Ms Maeve Ere-Bestman, Mrs Joy Obiaju and Mrs Charity Lloyd Harry.
Rivers State Electoral Commission has seven nominees – Dr Michael Ekpai Odey (Chairman), Mr Lezaasi Torbira, Prof Arthur Nwafor, Prof Godfrey Mbudiogha, Prof Joyce Akaniwor, Dr (Mrs) Olive A. Bruce and Prof Chidi Halliday.
The category of Rivers State Local Government Service Commission also has seven appointees namely Israel N. Amadi (Chairman), Linus Nwandem, Lady Christabel George-Didia, Dr Tonye Willie Pepple, Richard Ewoh, Rear Admiral Emmanuel Ofik (retd) and Sammy Apiafi.
The 17 nominees were all presented before the Senate committee by the Special Adviser to the President on Senate Matters, Basheer Lado, who divided them into three categories.
The nominees for the Rivers State Primary Health Care Management Board are expected to take place on Wednesday at the Senate.
Bamidele who doubles as the chairman of the 18-member committee, however, reiterated the Senate’s commitment to upholding democratic processes in the oil-rich state.
He said, “Let me quickly inform distinguished colleagues and members of the public that the nominees who are seated before us have gone through security screening by the various security agencies, including the Department of State Security as well as the Nigerian Police.
“And none of them has had any issue with security clearance, which is germane to what we are doing here. We will just be speaking to your CV because I will have no issues with security clearance.
“Members of the public are also to be told that we have also insisted that they should go through the constitutional requirement of going to do their assets declaration by the Code of Conduct Bureau, which they have also complied with.”
At the next plenary, the Ekiti legislator also revealed that the results and recommendations from the screening process will be presented to the Senate leadership.
“Finally, it is also for me to report that as a committee we did not have any petition against any of the nominees who are here. So there is no inhibiting factor that would really prevent us from screening any of the nominees.
“The screening exercise itself is a process and all of these individual steps that I have mentioned are part of the process.
“Once we are done with this, we then make our recommendations to the Senate in plenary for the confirmation or otherwise based on our findings and recommendations,” he said.
