By Lemmy Ughegbe, Ph.D
The recent ambassadorial screening by the Senate, once again reduced to the now familiar refrain of “take a bow and go,” has elicited widespread and justified criticism.
What was presented as legislative efficiency was, in truth, a troubling abdication of constitutional responsibility. When Oversight is performed as a ceremony, accountability becomes optional, and governance suffers.
Confirmation is not courtesy. It is scrutiny.
The Nigerian Senate is constitutionally empowered to confirm ambassadorial nominees not as a congratulatory ritual or an exercise in elite bonding, but as a safeguard of national interest.
Ambassadors are not decorative figures. They represent Nigeria’s diplomacy, trade interests, security posture, and global reputation. To confirm without questioning is to surrender that responsibility. A legislature that asks no questions cannot credibly claim to protect the country.
What made this round of confirmations particularly troubling was not merely the speed, but the substance, or lack of it. The process conveyed an unmistakable message: scrutiny was optional, and familiarity with power had become a substitute for competence.
The defence often advanced is that many nominees are well-known public figures. But familiarity is not a qualification, and experience is not immunity from questioning. In fact, a long public record demands deeper interrogation, not exemption.
During the screening, a seeming disagreement between Senators Adams Oshiomhole and Ali Ndume briefly interrupted the proceedings and was quickly amplified as evidence of seriousness. On closer examination, however, the episode amounted to little more than a volte face and a convenient distraction. The exchange altered nothing of substance. The nominees were still ushered through the familiar ritual.
More revealing was how Senator Oshiomhole framed the dramatic political transformation of Reno Omokri, once a fierce traducer of Bola Ahmed Tinubu as a presidential candidate and now a vocal praise singer and cheerleader of Tinubu as President, as pragmatism rather than a matter worthy of interrogation.
This was precisely the moment when scrutiny should have deepened, not evaporated. Instead, the brief clash merely decorated the process rather than disrupting it. Beneath the melodrama lay a more profound unity of purpose: to preserve the appearance of Oversight while avoiding its discomfort.
This failure was most glaring in cases where nominations had already generated public controversy. Reno Omokri’s candidacy attracted significant public attention due to his long history of divisive commentary and personal attacks on political actors and institutions.
Regardless of where one stands on his views, these were legitimate grounds for questioning. Diplomacy demands restraint, consistency, and the ability to subordinate personal grievances to national interests.
The Senate owed Nigerians answers on how such a public record aligned with the decorum, discipline, and diplomatic restraint required of an ambassador. Instead, the opportunity for scrutiny was squandered.
Similarly, the nomination of Professor Mahmood Yakubu, the immediate past chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, carried symbolic weight that demanded careful handling. His tenure coincided with some of the most contentious elections in Nigeria’s recent history.
A serious Senate would have interrogated the implications of elevating such a figure to diplomatic service, not as punishment, but as due diligence. Silence, in this context, was not neutrality. It was abdication.
Other nominees with histories marked by public controversy, legal disputes, or combative rhetoric were likewise waved through. This was not prudence. It was complacency. Oversight is not about embarrassment. It is about assurance. It is about testing temperament, judgement, preparedness, and understanding of Nigeria’s foreign policy priorities before entrusting individuals with Nigeria’s image abroad.
A comparative glance exposes the hollowness of Nigeria’s approach. In the United States, ambassadorial nominees undergo rigorous Senate hearings where they are questioned on foreign policy, ethics, conflicts of interest, and geopolitical realities. Some nominations stall for months. Others fail outright. The process is often uncomfortable, but it is undeniably serious.
In the United Kingdom, parliamentary committees subject key public appointments to sustained scrutiny. Nominees are expected to demonstrate competence, clarity of vision, and an understanding of the responsibilities they seek to assume before confirmation.
Even within Africa, Nigeria’s casual approach stands out unfavourably. In Kenya, ambassadorial nominees are subjected to public vetting by parliamentary committees, including questioning on past conduct, integrity, and preparedness for diplomatic assignments.
In Ghana, Parliament’s Appointments Committee conducts detailed hearings in which nominees respond to questions on foreign policy priorities, professional backgrounds, and ethical issues.
In South Africa, parliamentary oversight committees routinely interrogate executive appointments with a seriousness that underscores the importance of public accountability. What these systems share is a refusal to trivialise Oversight.
Against this backdrop, Nigeria’s “take a bow and go” practice is not merely inadequate; it is embarrassing. It signals to the world that scrutiny is negotiable and that accountability is secondary to convenience. It reinforces the perception that ambassadorial appointments are rewards for loyalty rather than responsibilities grounded in merit.
The institutional cost is profound. A legislature that routinely trivialises its oversight role weakens itself. Power unused is power surrendered. Each perfunctory confirmation diminishes the Senate’s moral authority to challenge the executive on more consequential matters. Oversight, like muscle, atrophies when it is not exercised.
Some argue that rigorous screening would slow governance. This argument misunderstands democracy. Speed is not a virtue when it comes at the expense of diligence. Efficiency that undermines accountability is not progress.
It is negligence disguised as pragmatism. Nigeria’s foreign policy challenges are too severe for casual confirmations. From economic diplomacy to regional security and diaspora engagement, the stakes are too high.
The Senate must decide what it wants to be: a ceremonial clearing house for executive preferences, or a coequal arm of government that understands the weight of its constitutional duty. The difference lies in whether it continues to ask nominees to take a bow and go, or insists that they first answer serious questions on behalf of the Nigerian people.
Oversight is not theatre. Confirmation is not courtesy. Democracy is not served by silence.
If the Senate desires public trust, it must earn it through rigour, not ritual. Until that happens, criticism will persist, and citizens will continue to regard it as a rubber stamp, not out of malice, but as a fair judgement of its own conduct.
Dr Lemmy Ughegbe, FIMC, CMC
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