- Says Senate will do the needful
A former Senate Leader, Ali Ndume, has promised that the Red Chamber will official voice its concerns over what he described as lopsided composition of President Bola Tinubu’s ambassadorial list.
He said this in a statement on Sunday, adding that it was on this understanding that he joined the screening of the nominees, despite earlier urging the President to withdraw the list over what he described as a clear breach of the federal character principle.
Ndume, a former Senate Leader and member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, said he took part in the screening after receiving assurances from the committee leadership that the Senate’s concerns about the lopsided composition of the nominees would be formally communicated to the President.
Ahead of the screening, Ndume had publicly called on Tinubu to withdraw the list, citing Section 14(3) of the 1999 Constitution, which mandates that the composition of the Federal government must reflect the federal character of Nigeria in order to promote national unity and loyalty.
The Borno South lawmaker had argued that the list of nominees already forwarded to the Senate failed to meet that constitutional requirement.
“I still maintain that the list is lopsided,” he said. “At the committee level, I raised a constitutional order at the meeting and we agreed that we will continue with the screening, but in our report, we will tell the President that the composition of the remaining list should be balanced to address our concerns on breach of federal character principles as enshrined in our Constitution.”
He stressed that states omitted in the current nominations must be accommodated in the final list to be sent to the Senate for screening and confirmation.
“We have 109 missions. For the non-career ambassadors, each state should have one to balance it because states like Gombe and Yobe were not captured, while some states have only career ambassadors, which are more or less non-political ambassadors,” he said.
According to him, a more equitable spread is feasible given Nigeria’s diplomatic footprint.
“Each State should have two or three ambassadors, and each state should have at least one career ambassador, since we have 109 embassies — consisting of 76 embassies, 22 high commissions and 11 consulates,” Ndume said.
“This can accommodate three ambassadors per state, non-career and career. That will address the issue of lopsidedness and breach of Section 14(3) of the Constitution. Don’t forget that we have 194 countries in the world.”
Ndume reiterated that while the Senate proceeded with the screening, it would formally convey its concerns to the President, insisting that adherence to the federal character principle must guide the final composition of Nigeria’s ambassadorial postings.