The Senate on Tuesday began the screening of the 47 ambassadorial nominees sent to it by President Muhammadu Buhari for legislative approval,Punch reports.
Some of the ambassadorial nominees drilled by members of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs chaired by Senator Monsurat Sunmonu, could not recite the national anthem and the national pledge smoothly.
The nominees were asked questions ranging from diplomatic issues to the names of the senators representing their states, their geopolitical zones and the states in them, how many local government areas in their states, how many lawmakers in the Senate, among others.
While some of them stuttered while reciting either the anthem or the pledge, others missed their lines in the process.
Buhari had on June 9 sent to the Senate 47 names of Nigerians to be screened and confirmed as career diplomats according to News24.
The President, in the letter personally signed by him and dated June 6, 2016, requested the Senate to approve the list at the shortest possible time.
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Senator Ita Enang, who led the nominees before the panel, after the exercise was postponed to Wednesday, however, said the reports of nominees not been able to recite the anthem and the pledge, which were already trending online, were not true.
But a senator in the panel, in a chat with journalists after the session, said Enang lied on the performance of the nominees.
“That was a lie. Everybody saw what happened. We were there; journalists were there; the cameras and the tapes were there. How can diplomats not know the anthem and the pledge of their country? If it were lawmakers now, he (Enang) would come for us,” he said.
