Shehu Sani, the former lawmaker representing Kaduna Central has alleged that ex-governors nominated for ministerial appointments by President Bola Tinubu represent the latter’s liabilities.

Festus Keyamo, the former Minister of State for Labour and Employment, has dismissed reports that he collected bribes from job seekers during his tenure in office.

Keyamo made the denial on Monday while speaking during the ministerial screening on the floor of the Senate, chaired by the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio.

The ministerial nominee from Delta State said he didn’t benefit from the Public Works Programme during his tenure at the Ministry of Labour and Employment in the Muhammadu Buhari administration.

Keyamo emphatically stated that the record of the beneficiaries of the N52bn Public Works scheme which was requested by the 9th Senate is domiciled with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and can be downloaded to ease accessibility to verify the information as provided.

The former minister, therefore, apologized to the Senate for any misunderstanding surrounding the obscurity of information around the fund disbursement.

Earlier, some lawmakers during the screening challenged Keyamo for refusing to honour invites by various committees in the 9th Senate and 9th House of Representatives led by Ahmed Lawan and Femi Gbajabiamila respectively.

Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe in his petition charged the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, to suspend Keyamo’s screening until he acknowledged that the Senate can summon and question any Minister and his/her Ministry.

The development eventually saw lawmakers in the Senate proceed into closed-door plenary after a rowdy session.

Upon resumption of the screening, Keyamo apologised to lawmakers for his actions and was later screened and confirmed.

It seems to me, with due respect, to every party concerned, that while we are all obsessed with the contemporary, topical issues of Ministerial nominations, the likely conflict with Niger and the noted desperation of the Northern Senators and Elders Forum, as well as others across the country, to prevent same, in addition to the concerns about palliatives and the rising cost of living, or the unresolved battle with organized Labour (NLC, TUC), we may be overlooking something that may be relevant to the health and the future of Nigeria. I identify this hereunder as the menace and terror of Prophets – those self-appointed owners of direct telephone access to God and who on a daily, unrelenting basis inflict upon this community, what they claim to have heard from God. They expropriate the claim that God speaks to them alone, and that whatever they hear from God is the gospel truth. There is no mechanism to double-check. They don’t provide any data reports of their telephone conversation with God. They simply tell us this is what “my father told me”, and the rest of us are all expected to obey blindly. We are the multitude of orphans, whose Heavenly fathers, just in case everyone has a father in Heaven, may have been denied telephone access to the earthly realm and hence, the rest of us have to depend on their own God whom they covet with so much proprietorial control. The problem is the lack of accountability and the fact that nobody really knows who speaks to these so-called spiritual fathers.

I am convinced that this is one of those issues that we must begin to interrogate. To prepare the background, we do not deny the fact that Nigeria is one of the most religious countries in the world. Several studies place us amongst the top ten in the world. but compared to these other countries, anyone at all can agree that Nigeria is one country where religion has been most divisive and centrifugal. Over time, we have fought and experienced intra--religious and inter-religious wars. Religion is so ubiquitous in this country, there is hardly any street corner or community where you will not find either a mosque or a church. Many of these places of religious worship may start at a mushroom level, but they may soon grow into big oak, with adherents trooping in and out, claiming to be persons of faith, seeking the grace and eye of God. Religiosity has become so widespread, Nigerian Christians now organize services on Fridays to compete with Muslims, and on Sundays, Muslims reciprocate by holding worship services during church time. The result has been the unending conflict between Christians and Muslims who constitute on the average, on both sides of the equation, between 45 - 59% of the population, and a minority percentage of African traditional worshippers clamouring for space and recognition, as seen in the recent crisis in Osun State whereby Osun traditional worshippers were told pointedly that they could not and would not be allowed to celebrate their Isese festival in Kwara State because it is an Islamic State.

Section 10 of Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution states clearly that there shall be no state religion in any part of the Federation. The law does not recognize any such thing as an Islamic state, even with the strange mongrel of the adoption of the Sharia in 12 states of the North, operationalized in those states as a criminal orthodoxy, completely against the spirit of the Constitution. Section 38 guarantees every citizen the right to freedom of thought, religion and conscience. Nigeria has Muslims and Christians almost in equal proportion, with animists constituting a small percentage of the remaining balance. If a country’s wealth were to be judged by the religiosity of its people, and their open demonstration of passion for God, Nigeria should be the wealthiest country in the world. Everywhere you turn in this country, there is religious piety on display. There is a church or a mosque in every corner. Every day, there are people proclaiming the call to prayer and the muezzin heralding the beginning of every dawn. And yet the bigger question is: why is Nigeria so religious, so prayerful and yet so poor? Max Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism had tried to draw a link between capitalism and religion, especially the Protestant ethic. The opposite is the case in our country. The Protestant ethic appears not to be working here. The Weberian concept of religion and prosperity has failed us, because the basic fundamentals have never been allowed to grow. And those fundamentals do not grow by accident. What we are left with is religion without the work ethic that can generate prosperity, nor the righteousness that exalts nations. What we are left with is religion as opium, superstition, a grand game of illusion and mind control, underlying Nigeria’s development crisis.

Over time, Nigerians have been co-opted into this web of delusion, whereby they blame God for everything, rather than locating our woes in the province of the failures of man. Having been failed by themselves, and by their leaders, Nigerians are quick to resolve every situation by declaring that “It is the way God wants it”. Who knows the mind of God? Who knows what God wants? The most recent demonstration of this is the humiliating rejection of Dr Mariam Shetty as the Ministerial nominee from Kano. She had woken up in the morning, dressed up gaily, looking forward to being screened by the Senate like others before her, only to be told upon arrival at the National Assembly, that her name had been replaced. Nobody had the decency, not even the President who nominated her, to make a phone call or send an emissary to stop her from being publicly embarrassed. If she had been given prior notice of the latest development, she would have stayed back. But nobody thought of her feelings as a human being. And how has she responded? She says as a person of faith, she leaves everything in the hands of God, and calls on her supporters not to despair. She is not alone.

When accidents occur, hops are dashed, and lives are lost needlessly, Nigerians are quick to blame God. There are many Nigerians who have trooped into politics, seeking even the highest offices in the land, because their shamanist had seen a vision that they would one day become the President of Nigeria. They borrow money, print posters, hire thugs to steal ballot boxes, and when they fail, they fight tooth and nail, because they are convinced that the God whose voice their spiritualists told them had sealed their fate in Heaven does not fail. While various religious denominations in the country are guilty, the biggest culprits are the Pastors of the Pentecostal variety who preach progress, prosperity and capitalism without the underlying ethics. Many of them are doing more harm than good. I use the word, “many” in order not to generalize. There may well be a few true preachers of the word who speak the truth and are genuinely moved by the spirit but we are indeed genuinely in the season of religious charlatanism, in a country dominated at an alarming rate by the tribe fictionalized by Wole Soyinka in The Trials of Brother Jero (1963), and Requiem for a Futurologist (1983) as cunning liars who hold the country down. The tribe has not reduced, rather it has flourished, in Soyinka’s lifetime, before his every eyes - the agony of those who think for society.

What I find perplexing is the manner in which these prophets expropriate and openly claim the omnipotence and the omniscience of God, who they claim to represent on earth. What stupefies is how they try to run a government of the world with their spiritual pronouncements, something not even the United Nations has been able to do, and which the free range of globalization has not made possible. Every day, I am astounded by the unending deluge of Pastors, Prophets, Prophetesses, men and women of God, some of them with churches small like the Lord’s manger or big like the Wembley stadium who claim to know the future and determine the fate of men. The more annoying part is that they have in their grips, at their fingers, a captive audience of believers who propagate their propaganda, and this sadly, includes a number of local media outlets who seem to base their profit margin on the reportage of prophecies by their favourite Pastors. They not only report the prophecies, they authenticate them subsequently and some of these publications have been turned into the PR wings of prophets and prophetesses. One of my favorite books on journalism is Francis S. Merrill’s Responsible Journalism. The manner in which some media outlets feed and water the propaganda machinery of end-time, Pentecostal churches is nothing short of irresponsible journalism. When a Pastor makes a so-called prediction, how does that amount to a statement of fact? Who verifies it? Which media house has a phone call to God? And yet, daily, we are inundated with reports of how this Prophet or Prophetess made this prediction two months ago and how it had come to pass. Where is the audit or regulatory body to determine that? The propaganda is often based on a press release by an aide to the Prophet.

Many of these Prophets and Prophetesses are taking us for a ride, more so as they are not subjected to any form of integrity test, not even by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). In the world of faith, anybody can just claim that he or she has heard the “Word” or has been called by the “Heavenly Father” and in a moment of self-induced epiphany start speaking in “tongues”. People have the freedom to worship their God the way they want, but they have no right to force others to go to Heaven in their own prescribed manner. In fact, there are people in this country, shocking as this may sound, who would rather go to Hell, if Hell exists hereafter and is not just a city in Europe and the US. The temerity of the shamanists/futurologists, hiding under the banner of God is what we deplore. Since the 2023 general election process in Nigeria began, there has been a plethora of predictions by men and women of faith. Many of them have constituted themselves into an alternative electorate. Hence, during the elections, they launched a trade in determining who would win or not. And after the elections, they have created their own spiritual election petition tribunals, from where they dictate to lawyers what to do and what not to do, with jejune, often commonsensical predictions about what the tribunals may come up with. They claim to have embarked on weeks of fasting or gone on a retreat to a Mountain and that “their Father” has spoken to them about everything from Ukraine to the Maghreb and the Ascension Island, and on the basis of their grand imaginings, their media allies ask us to believe, even when clear facts dictate otherwise.

I have seen, for example, cases of some Pastors predicting what would happen to election petition judges in the Presidential election if they do not rule out Tinubu because of a civil forfeiture and certificate issue in the United States. Obviously, some silks may be relying on the shamanists in their moves in this particular case, and thus disregarding basic principles of international civil litigation. It is elementary knowledge that as a general rule, Forum court does not apply foreign criminal law when it is not pleaded or proven directly or indirectly. Whatever conviction was done abroad has no relevance here. Our Constitution does not have a foreign court in mind. Matters that may be relevant would include marriage, divorce, or monetary awards in a foreign land, but even then, such cases must be registered in our laws, that is lex fori. Criminal offences are local offences, except where another country initiates a fresh trial within its own jurisdiction but even that could raise questions of status, subject, characterization, forum, capacity, double jeopardy and/or public policy. Our prophets, sitting down in their ecclesiastical shrines, after a few days of self-imposed fasting and having no firm knowledge of the facts, beaten black and blue by hunger, simply make divine, legal pronouncements based on metaphysical illusions. In their courts, there is no right of appeal once their God has spoken!

They have done enough damage already at private levels misleading many, breaking up homes, destroying lives, fouling up Nigerian politics with their unverifiable visions. On the positive side, they have done almost equal good, giving hope to the hopeless, and the millions of troubled souls in the land. Nonetheless, they must be restrained from taking over the governance process. Their expanding influence in the public space through the abuse of traditional and social media spaces, and unfettered access to the corridors of power, must be curtailed. This is without prejudice to their rights under Sections 38 and 39 of the Constitution, but is it possible to restrict them to the private value of religion, their denominations and the communities they relate with? These merchants of illusion are gradually usurping the functions of state institutions. Many of them give court rulings without regard to either the law or the facts of the case. They say they are moved by the spirit and they have a captive audience. No country should subject itself to being ruled by the capricious movement of unseen spirits and their earthly mouthpieces!

It is all the more disturbing because many of these Pentecostal pastors and prophetesses do not even base their pronouncements on the Scriptures. They sound more like motivational speakers, common sense maestros and closet newspaper editorialists. They have large followings. They must be told to stay within their areas of concern and avoid politics. Quite a surprise, none of them could offer a clear prediction on yesterday’s defeat of the Super Falcons by the Lionesses of England in what could have been a historic and extraordinary upset in the on-going Women’s World Cup. I won’t be surprised though if one of their media allies shows up, before weekend, to report that Prophet XYZ had predicted the outcome of the match since January 2000! When will the Church of Nigeria self-regulate and check the influence of the fortune tellers in cassock? Not even Friedrich Nietzsche’s Zarathustra was this ambitious.

Approximately two weeks following the military assumption of power in Niger, the individuals behind the coup have designated Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine, a former economy minister, to serve as the nation’s new prime minister.

A spokesperson for the military junta conveyed this announcement via television during the late hours of Monday.

Previously, Mr. Lamine Zeine held the position of economy and finance minister for several years within the cabinet of the ousted then-President Mamadou Tandja in 2010. More recently, he has been employed as an economist at the African Development Bank in Chad, as reported by a Nigerien media source.

In late July, the military overthrew democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum and suspended the country’s constitution, impacting its populace of 26 million.

During Mr. Bazoum’s tenure, Niger stood as a vital ally of the Western nations in combating the advancement of Islamist extremist groups in the Sahel region.

An ultimatum extended by ECOWAS to the coup orchestrators, urging the reinstatement of Mr. Bazoum, lapsed on Sunday.

In a subsequent development, the prime ministers representing the ECOWAS member states will convene in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, on Thursday. The purpose of this meeting is to deliberate on the future course of action.

There was a mild drama on the floor of the Senate on Monday over the ministerial nominations of President Bola Tinubu.

Naija News reports that Senators from South East had protested against Tinubu’s non-adherence to the principle of federal character and provision of the law in his ministerial appointments.

Senator Tony Nwoye, representing Anambra North Senatorial District, who moved the motion which was stepped down by Akpabio, explained that Tinubu’s ministerial appointments violate the provisions of the Federal Character Commission Act which provides that in sharing any position, the President must take cognizance of zones, states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

He said despite the provisions of the law, the South East lawmakers are worried that apart from the appointment of a minister from each of the five states in the region, no other minister was appointed from the zone on the basis of representation from geopolitical zones, whereas the other five geopolitical zones got an additional minimum of two ministers each from their zones.

The five ministers appointed from the Southeast zone are Uju Ken Ohaneye (Anambra state), Uche Nnaji (Enugu state), David Umahi (Ebonyi state), Dr Doris Uzoka (Imo state) and Nkeiruka Onyejeocha (Abia state).

The Senator said while other regions got additional ministers apart from the one appointed from each state in the regions, the Southeast did not get any additional ministerial appointments.

Nwoye said, “I am not happy about it at all. That is why senators from the Southeast – 15 of us in number – wanted to move the point of order since Friday on Section 14(3) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, of the flagrant violation of that section.

“That section points out the fact that in sharing any position, you must take cognizance of zones, you must take cognizance of Federal Character in anything you are doing.

“Then, Federal Character Commission Act, 2004, laws of the federation states very clear in Section 5(a) (b) Part 3, Section 4(b) Part 1 of the Federal Character Commission Act, that in doing any appointment, be it ministers, you must take cognizance of states, FCT or Zones.

“Zones in this subject matter is geopolitical zones. So, the Southeast zone was not given one person in terms of geopolitical zones, while other zones, Northwest has three additional from the zone, making it 10.

“Northeast has two, making it eight because they have six states. North Central has extra two added to the six states they have, making it eight. Southwest has extra three added to six states they have making it nine. South South has extra two added to six states they have, making it eight. Southeast has none.

“They only gave us based on states. It is not fair. It offends the principle of Federal Character. It violates that section of the Federal Character – FA 5(b) Part 3, 4(b).

“That is why we have been angling for a motion but from point of order to motion, but the Senate President in his wisdom, for reasons best known to him decided that he wants to go and take it up with President Asiwaju Bola Tinubu privately instead of moving the motion.

“We prefer to move the motion, if it fails, it fails because other senators, we spoke to them individually and they saw the reason that it is not fair. Maybe it was an oversight. So, we are appealing to him by the sense of the motion that was stepped down, for him to see reasons to reflect Federal Character Act and respect that provision and appoint two extra ministers from the Southeast to represent the zone because it is very clear in the laws of the federation.

“And it is not fair that out of six geopolitical zones we have in Nigeria, five zones have their own from two, three but only Southeast doesn’t have any. It is not fair.”

In his response, Senate President Godswill Akpabio stepped down the point of order raised by Nwoye and promised to meet with the President over the grievances of the South East lawmakers.

The National Chairman of All Progressives Congress, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje, has expressed his readiness to receive the Presidential Candidate of the New Nigerian People Party, Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso if he agrees to defect to the ruling party.

Ganduje made the statement at a media briefing with some selected media organisations in Kano.

This was shortly before the former Kano governor received a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party and former Secretary to Government of the Federation, Anyim Pius Anyim, at his residence in Abuja on Sunday.

He said, “Nobody will say Kwankwaso is not a good politician, at least he was a two-term Kano Governor, although, in disrupted tenures, he was Minister of Defence, even though he doesn’t know what is defense, and was once a Senator, even though he never said anything throughout his stay there.

“But, if he is willing to decamp to APC, our door is open, especially now that someone from his state is the party chairman, it will be easier for him to lobby.”

When quizzed on why Kwankwaso was shut out from President Bola Tinubu’s list of ministerial nominees, Ganduje disclosed that the NNPP candidate was never given such promise in the first place.

According to him, he first heard the news from Kwankwaso himself when he returned from his meeting with the President in Paris, France.

“It is true that President Tinubu has promised to run a unity government, and he stood by his words. Nyesom Wike, from PDP, is now a Ministerial nominee. But he [Kwankwaso] is the one who said he will be given appointment initially, and not the President himself,” he added.

The APC chairman’s first official media parley is coming four days after his appointment as national chairman of the party at Thursday’s meeting of the National Executive Committee held at Transcorp Hilton in Abuja.

In the same vein, Ganduje hosted Anyim at his residence in Abuja on Sunday.

Although details of their chat have not been made public, Anyim’s presence at the residence of the APC national chairman has fuelled the growing speculation that he may be planning to decamp to the ruling party.

The former SGF had paid the President an unusual ‘courtesy visit’ at the Presidential Villa in early July.

There was mild drama on Monday when a former Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System desk officer at the Federal Character Commission, Haruna Kolo, accused of collecting bribes from job seekers in exchange for employment, owned up to the allegation.

This was just as he admitted to having received over N75m from desperate jobseekers on the instructions of the Chairman of the FCC.

Not done, Kolo claimed that the FCC boss instructed him to transfer the money to his (Kolo) personal account and pay her in cash which he did a couple of times in her house.

Kolo made the revelation at the ongoing investigative hearing by the House of Representatives ad hoc committee investigating federal ministries, departments and agencies, parastatals and tertiary institutions on mismanagement of the IPPIS.

The ex-IPPIS desk officer told the lawmakers that he resigned from FCC on November 2, 2022 to join the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria but ended up getting salaries twice from FCC.

He added that the anomaly was reported to the Human Resource Officer who told him that the issue would be addressed.

He said, “When she came to FCC as the Executive Chairman, she appointed me as a protocol officer and I carried out my duty diligently.

“On the allegations of job racketeering, the FCC Chairman instructed me to liaise with one Mr Shehu, who is a personal driver and Personal Assistant to the Taraba State Commissioner. As a desk officer, I was responsible to take whoever was employed to IPPIS for capturing. No one could go there without a letter from the Chairman or Human Resource Officer of the FCC.

“When she came, she wrote a letter to the Accountant General of the Federation, instructing that no letter from the FCC should be honoured except she signs the letter. So, whenever there was new employment, she signs, gives to me and I take it to the Accountant General’s office for capturing.

“Shehu is the one that brought those who paid money to my account for job, some paid N1m, others N1.5m, all to my personal account, my Ecobank account. She asked me to give cash to her, which I did through POS. So, there is no evidence of transfer or anything.

“On the allegation of working at seven places, I was never at any time involved in seven jobs. They are making the allegation based on assumption.”

He continued, “The second allegation on my subsequent employment at AMCON was a result of her personal favour to me. We were four in number, and she gave the appointment letter to me, Kadijah, and Olushola. We all proceeded for an interview at AMCON headquarters in Abuja after which we were called upon for training on the 16th January 2023,

“After the training, Olushola and I were called to Lagos. Unfortunately, Kadijah, who is the chairman’s biological sister, was rejected. The Chairman accused me of being responsible for her rejection.

“I see no reason why (sic) the chairperson would make allegations of such magnitude against me. I have been threatened even at gunpoint and had to leave Abuja.

“Sir, I want this committee to know that after this sitting if anything happens to me, the FCC chairperson should be held responsible, ” Kolo added.

Responding, the chairman of the committee, Yusuf Gagdi, promised to do every possible to unravel the truth and make the same available to Nigerians.

“This committee will not sit down and watch taxpayers’ money being embezzled.

“I know why we were asking Kolo to give us evidence and we know why we were deferring this sitting for other witnesses alleged to have had financial dealings with the FCC.

“Kolo will appear here tomorrow (Tuesday). We are calling the other witnesses. We will allow you to do your work. Whoever is found wanting will answer his father’s name, including Kolo Haruna,” he said.

The committee adjourned sitting till Tuesday (today).

The Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, on Monday, stated that there was no plan to impeach his deputy, Philip Shaibu.

The governor, however, noted that the move by Shaibu seeking a court order to stop his purported impeachment was preemptive ahead of his alleged plan to defect to the All Progressives Congress.

The governor, while briefing journalists in Benin City during a visit by the Edo North leaders, alleged that the deputy governor had been actively engaging with senior actors both at the national and state level of the APC, negotiating his way into their party, adding that he was on the verge of finalising moves to defect to the APC.

Obaseki said, “Let me put it on record that I am not aware of any plot or any scheme to impeach the Deputy Governor, Comrade Philip Shaibu. I have also checked and there was no such plan.

“So, the court action taken, for me, is a thing of shock and disappointment. I am trying to reflect on the move made by somebody that I have given a broad latitude to do his work as deputy governor. So, for him to take this kind of action is shocking.”

Obaseki said Shaibu never discussed his governorship ambition with him.

“The last time we spoke of my successor after the House of Assembly election, I did say that we should be patient and that our task is to try and finish well and conclude all our projects we started. It’s only when we do this right that we will have the support of the people for my successor.

“I believe that this action by him is a preemptive move to get a court order, keep his ticket and move to another party. I think it’s unfair for our party. We don’t need this sort of crisis. I have been getting calls all over the world and it’s rather sad that somebody who is part of an administration will do this to the administration because of his personal ambition.”

Obaseki said he was not angry “but naturally I should be disappointed.”

Meanwhile, at the state Assenbly on Monday no mention was made of the alleged impeachment move against Shaibu.

But an Edo North group, led by a former Speaker of the House of Assembly, Kabiru Adjoto, addressed journalists on Monday, accusing Shaibu of embarrassing the people of the zone.

Adjoto said the group could not keep quiet on the current political happenings in the state expressing disbelief over the imbroglio.

He said, “We have watched in utter disbelief the self-contrived rift between our governor, Godwin Obaseki, and our son, the Deputy Governor of Edo State, Rt Hon Comrade Philip Shaibu. Afemai people are a very hard-working, patriotic and loyal race.

“We recall that our two distinguished sons, who are former deputy governors, Reverend Peter Obadan and Mike Oghiadomhe, cooperated with their bosses and demonstrated the loyalty that the Afemai race is known for.

“We are surprised and embarrassed by the behaviour of Deputy Governor Shaibu in his ill-advised mission to govern the state by all means.

“Mr Godwin Obaseki has been magnanimous more than any governor in Nigeria, and has saddled our son, the Deputy Governor with the highest number of responsibilities, ranging from sports, internal revenue, boundary committee, immunisation, to mention but a few, which has earned him a name ‘the busiest Deputy Governor in Nigeria’.

“The court action is not only speculative but baseless and highly embarrassing. We are coming out today to disassociate the Afemai people from this ill-conceived action, and to also apologise to the governor of the state for this unfortunate incident.”

When contacted for reaction, the Chief Press Secretary to the deputy governor, Musa Ebomhiana, said he was on medical leave and could not comment on the matter.

The reason three ministerial nominees were not confirmed by the Nigerian Senate on Monday has been revealed.

Recall that the Red Chamber concluded the screening of all the 48 ministerial nominees forwarded to it by President Bola Tinubu.

Naija News reports however that 45 out of the 48 nominees were confirmed by the lawmakers while three were not confirmed.

Those not confirmed were the immediate past Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai; Stella Okotete (Delta), and Abubakar Sani Danladi (Taraba).

According to SaharaReporters, the three nominees were not confirmed because of letters sent by the Department of State Services (DSS) and the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, to the Senate.

Sources at the Senate told the news platform that the Director-General of the DSS and the NSA urged the lawmakers not to confirm three ministerial nominees because they have not received security clearance.

Top sources at the Senate told SaharaReporters on Monday that the Director-General of the DSS and the NSA wrote to the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, advising the upper chamber not to confirm the nomination of the trio.

One of the sources said: “The NSA, Ribadu and the DG of DSS have just sent us letters not to clear El-Rufai, Senator Abubakar Danladi from Taraba and Stella Okotete from Delta. The Senate President just read it to us now at the closed-door session. He didn’t give it to us anyway.”

Another source said: “The letter from the NSA and DG DSS cited security reasons, saying the Senate should defer the confirmation of the trio for now, for national security. The senate president is holding the document sent to him tight and has not released it to anyone.”

Recall that a group of protesters under the aegis of Secure Nation Group (SNG) in Abuja had staged a protest on the premises of the National Assembly to call on the lawmakers not to confirm El-Rufai as minister.

The protesters expressed surprise that El-Rufai’s name was listed as a ministerial nominee despite his alleged religious fanaticism, saying that the former governor should be investigated and prosecuted over alleged genocidal attacks on predominantly Shia Muslim communities in Kaduna State.

Also, some top Nigerian lawyers wrote to the 10th Senate demanding the immediate disqualification of Okotete, who is a former Executive Director of the Nigerian Export-Import Bank (NEXIM) over alleged fraud and abuse of public office.

Meanwhile, in the letter to Nigeria’s upper legislative house, the petitioners requested the Senate to properly investigate Okotete over alleged round-tripping and recycling of different loans and use of various front companies as proxies to defraud NEXIM Bank of billions of Naira and Dollars.

Also, Danladi was reportedly barred in 2019 by the Supreme Court from contesting or holding political offices for 10 years over certificate forgery and age falsification.