The Nigerian Senate is set to screen the 17 candidates nominated by President Bola Tinubu to run the affairs of three critical agencies in Rivers State presently under emergency rule. The agencies are the Independent Electoral Commission, Rivers State Civil Service Commission and Rivers State Local Government Service Commission.
The Leader of the Senate, Michael Opeyemi Bamidele representing Ekiti Central, disclosed that the nominees have not only fulfilled the mandatory requirement of declaration of their assets with the Code of Conduct Bureau, but have gotten security clearance by the Department of State Services and the Nigerian Police.
Senator Bamidele spoke during the screening exercise by the Senate Ad hoc Committee On Oversight of Emergency Rule constituted to oversee the activities of the Sole Administrator, Ibok-Ete Ibas, a retired Vice-Admiral.
Newsmata.com.ng reports that the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio had on June 12, 2025, read the list of nominees for the agencies forwarded to him by President Tinubu 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 screening of nominees for the Rivers State Primary Health Care Management Board is expected to take place on Wednesday at the Senate.
Bamidele, who doubles as the chairman of the 18-member committee, however, reaffirmed 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 had 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.”
The Ekiti lawmaker also disclosed that once they finished the screening exercise, the results and recommendations would be presented to the Senate leadership at the next plenary.
“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.