Expdonaloaded News; Cabinet list: We’ve no grouse with Ambode –Lagos Assembly

THE Lagos State House of Assembly has denied hav­ing any rift with Governor Akinwunmi Ambode over the proposed pre-screening of nominees that would make up the state cabinet.The Assembly, last week, set up 15-man adhoc com­mittee to screen nominees that would make up the State’s cabinet, which led to speculations that the leg­islature was at loggerheads with the executive.But addressing the press, the deputy speaker, who is also the chairman of the committee, Wasiu Eshin­lokun, stated that the pro­cess was constitutional and should not be regarded as a witch-hunt.


Quoting section 192 (4) of the constitution, he said that nobody should be ap­pointed as a Commissioner of the state, unless he is qualified for election as a member of the House of Assembly.
He also stated that the reason for the pre-screening was to carry out a thorough background check to ensure that certificates submitted by nominees were authen­tic, and anyone found to have presented a fake certif­icate would be disqualified.
He said: “We want to do the necessary things, be­cause if we call the nomi­nees to appear on the floor of the House and ask them to just take a bow and go, people would assume we are carrying out business as usual. The screening is going to begin on Monday 5, and end on Friday 9, 2015.”
Areas to be considered in the screening, according to Eshinlokun, include proof of party membership with letters from the state and ward chairman of the local government chapter of the nominee, and concurrent of the honourable members representing the nominee’s local government.
Others are profiling by the Directorate of the State Security, absolving the nominee of act of terror­ism or corruption, and cer­tificate of fitness from any Lagos State Government General Hospital.
Speaking on the report that the cabinet was sched­uled to be inaugurated by Governor Ambode on October 5, he said, the As­sembly was not informed of such a decision.
He said: “The Assembly has a very good relation­ship with the executive, and if the relationship was messy, we would not have recently assented to the governor’s request for a re-ordering of the budget.