Deputy President, Ike Ekweremadu, should have presided over the screening of ministerial nominees on Wednesday.

Senate President, Bukola Saraki, was unavailable on the day, to attend his trial at the Code of Conduct Tribunal.

Ordinarily, Ekweremadu should have filled in for his boss, but the All Progressives Congress Senators didn’t allow that to happen.

Senate Majority Leader, Ali Ndume, would later reveal that due to the fact that Ekweremadu belongs to the Peoples Democratic Party, and most of the nominees were of the APC, it was decided to wait until after Saraki’s trial.

“We were thinking that the lower court (CCT) would cancel the sitting but it did not. The Senate President had to be at the tribunal by 10.00am. He is the presiding officer. This is an extraordinary time because we are screening ministers that are predominantly of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

“So, that was why we said this screening should continue with the Senate President presiding. This is not a normal day because we are screening APC nominees of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

“There are issues surrounding it. We don’t want any other issue out of it again. The presiding officer is the Senate President, who started the screening and we said we would take a day off and continue tomorrow (today).

“If you look at the constitution, it is not a ‘must’. It is just like when the president is off, the vice president does not automatically become the President of Nigeria. He remains the vice president until a letter is transmitted as such. That is what the constitution says.

“We have an issue at hand that the Senate President is handling and that is the screening of ministers. We said let us shift it by one day to enable the Senate President to attend the court session. Then, we will continue tomorrow (today).

“If the President takes his discretion to take his time to submit the (ministerial) list, which Nigerians patiently waited for, why are Nigerians not patient with the Senate?

“Why don’t you take us up on issues other than these trivialities? Supposing we said let’s take it off till next week, we have the right to do that.

“But the constitution is guiding us that we have to do this within 21 working days. We are still within the 21 working days.

“It is not 21 days; it is 21 working days. Our working days in the Senate plenary are three days in a week.

“So, if you are talking about 21 working days, it means that the Senate will do this within seven weeks because we sit for plenary Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. That is three working days. It means that logically, we can do this up to seven weeks.”