The Senate on Friday gave reason for not grilling former federal lawmakers who were minister-nominees of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu during their screening ahead of their confirmation by the Red Chamber.
The leader of the Senate, Opeyemi Bamidele, who gave the explanation at the beginning of the screening of the fresh 19 nominees, said since the serving lawmakers knew the antecedents and capacity of the nominees who were former parliamentarians, it would amount to a waste of time to subject them to a thorough grilling.
“The practice of ‘bow and go’ privilege extended to legislators is a global practice, not limited to the Nigerian parliament,” he said.
He said the explanation had become necessary in order 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 spokesperson of the Senate, Yemi Adaramodu (APC, Ekiti South), had in the penultimate Thursday before commencement of the screening exercise, promised that it would be a thorough and radical departure from the ‘take a bow and go’ tradition.
However, many Nigerians, who didn’t know the workings of the parliament, wondered why the Red Chamber jettisoned its promise of a thorough screening and sustained the ‘take a bow and go’ tradition.
