There was a charged Senate session on Monday during the screening of Festus Keyamo, a ministerial nominee from Delta state.
This comes when the senator representing Abia central senatorial district, Darlington Nwokocha, moved a motion for the suspension of the screening Keyamo.
The motion was immediately seconded by the Abia-south senator, Enyinnaya Abaribe.
Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, thereafter subjected the motion to a voice vote but the lawmakers were divided on the matter.
The upper chamber erupted into a rowdy session. During the heated argument between the lawmakers, senate majority leader, Opeyemi Bamidele, called for a closed-door session.
Akpabio, worried by the development, rose from his chair and announced that the Senate would enter a closed session.
Nwokocha accused the nominee of disrespecting the 9th National Assembly.
Keyamo, senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN) was a former minister of state for labour and productivity in the immediate past administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Nwokocha said during the Buhari administration, Keyamo was invited to explain a special public works programme (SPWP) but he didn’t honour the invitation.
The SPWP was coordinated by the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) directly supervised by the Keyamo’s ministry.
In 2020, the Federal Government earmarked N52 billion for the programme to recruit 1,000 youths from each of the 774 local governments for three months and pay them N20,000 each.
However, there were complaints over the programme as some constituents said they did not benefit from it.
The Senate Public Account Committee subsequently began a probe on the matter but Nwokocha claimed the then minister shunned the invitation by the committee, saying the Senate wanted to hijack the process.
