By Andrew Oota
The Senate has finally confirmed the appointment of Mr Shaakaa Chira as Auditor General for the Federation and promised to provide adequate funding for the office to function effectively for the purposes of accountability.
The nominee was earlier on absent at the Senate confirmation exercise .
During his eventual confirmation exercise ,the nominee expressed concerns that the office was grossly underfunded,adding that in the 2023 budget ,the Office of the Auditor General was allocated only N62million.
According to the Auditor General , the money was not even enough to purchase papers in the office .
The Senate similarly promised to fast track the passage of the Audit Bill that will allow the AGF to be able to promote,discipline and have overall control of its staff.
Mr.Chira’s confirmation was slatted as first major business of the day after five bills scheduled for first readings were passed.
Procedurally, the Senate leader Bamidele Opeyemi had moved the motion on suspension of order 12 of the standing rules of the Senate to allow the nominee and the special Adviser to the President to admit into the Senate chambers for the exercise .
Shortly after the motion was carried unanimously , the Senate leader announced the unavailability of the nominee, a situation that forced the Senate to skip to the next item which was the confirmation of 10 Resident Electoral Commissioners.
Chira’s confirmation was subsequently stood down.
However after the confirmation of the exercise in respect of the Resident Electoral Commissioners, the Senate re-admitted the Auditor General nominee for his confirmation session.
The Senate also confirmed all the nominations for the Resident Electoral Commissioners namely, Lagos (Bunmi Onoseyinden), Akwa Ibom (Etekamba Umoren),Edo (Isa Shaka),Ekiti (Okuwatoyin Babalola, Gombe (Abubakar Maaji),kwara (Shehu Wahab), Nassarawa (Kashimi Idris ),Niger (Abubakar Sadiq) Rivers (Anugbum Onuocha) and Zamfara (Fawa Dambo).
