Ambassadorial nominees’ inability to recite national anthem and other matters

Nigerians living abroad who would want to learn the country’s rich history and tradition from the nation’s envoys in their respective countries, may face a brick wall, if the drama that unfolded at last week’s ambassadorial screening was anything to go by.

At the screening of the nominees by the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, some of the career diplomats who have worked for over three decades in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and currently serving in foreign missions, caused a serious embarrassment as they fumbled and muddled up the recitation of the country’s national anthem and pledge.

While the nominees from Anambra, Bauchi and Niger States were unable to sing the national anthem or recite the national pledge properly, leaving legislators and Senate correspondents at the event reeling with uncontrollable laughter, the envoy from Delta State admitted that she did not know the number of local government areas in her state.

It took the intervention of a member of the panel, James Manager (PDP, Delta South), to rescue some of them, even as the Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Ita Enang, made frantic efforts to manage the embarrassing scenario.

As if that was not enough, the most shocking of all came from the Benue State nominee, Jane Ndem, who said the capital of Lagos is Lagos… Yes, Lagos and not Ikeja.
She was responding to a question asked by the Chairman of the Committee, Monsurat Sunmonu (APC, Oyo Central), asking her to name 12 states and their state capitals.
Apparently dazed by her submission, Manager interjected by asking capital of Lagos, Lagos? To which the long-standing diplomat affirmed: “Yes, capital of Lagos State is Lagos because I started my working career there”.

In order not to embarrass themselves, most of the nominees were armed with ‘Current Affairs’ to brush up their knowledge of history and recent developments in the country while in the waiting room for their screening. In fact, a colleague jokingly said he heard one of the diplomats reciting states and capitals like a four-year-old child.

And just like one man’s poison is another man’s meat, Enang described the screening exercise as the most thorough he had witnessed during his time in the National Assembly.
In what could be a fait accompli, Senate President Bukola Saraki, urged the 47 nominees to keep Nigeria’s flag flying and represent the country positively in their respective postings. He gave the charge when Enang led a delegation of the ambassadorial nominees to Saraki immediately after the screening exercise.
With Saraki’s subtle endorsement of the nominees, one needs not study rocket science to know that the nominees have been confirmed by the Red Chamber even before the September 13 resumption from annual recess.

Even though a school-of-thought has come to the defence of the career diplomats on the grounds that there is no correlation between a candidate’s performance at a job interview and his actual job performance, it is unforgivable for an envoy who is supposed to be the symbol of his country not to be able to recite his country’s national anthem and pledge properly. The question then arises: if they can’t sing the national anthem, recite the pledge properly, the number of local governments in their states or the capitals of some states, what then do they not know?
The development comes as stakeholders in the education sector have called for the reinstatement of History as a core subject in primary and secondary school curriculum.
Talking of recent history, the last is yet to be heard about the controversy trailing the 2016 budget, as allegations and counter-allegations over N481billion padding of this year’s budget have continued to gather steam.

After meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the State House Monday last week, former President Olusegun Obasanjo lashed out at members of the National Assembly, describing them as “armed robbers and rogues”.

Obasanjo had said the ongoing revelation by a former Chairman of the House of Representatives’ Committee on Appropriation Abdulmumin Jibrin on budget padding in the National Assembly had proved him right that the lawmakers were corrupt. The elder statesman said the best way out of the current mess was to ensure that only men of integrity were elected into the National Assembly.

He said the allegations of 2016 budget padding in the House of Representatives had confirmed his statements in 2012 that the nation’s parliament was corrupt.
But Obasanjo’s criticism did not go down well with the Deputy Majority Leader of the Senate, Bala Na’Allah, who said it was the ex-President that instituted corruption by bribing federal lawmakers to back his Third Term ambition when he was the President.

While promising to vacate his seat should the former President tender ‘one proven record of corruption’ against him, the ranking senator said he was the only member from Kebbi State, who did not find it worthy at that time to collect N50million as inducement to subvert the constitution and provide a constitutional framework for the failed Third Term ambition of Obasanjo.
As Jibrin and Speaker of the House of Representatives Yakubu Dogara fight dirty over padding of this year’s budget, Nigerians are keenly waiting for the skeleton in the cupboard of the Senate leadership to be exposed as it relates to the 2016 budget.

This will only happen when they commence ‘roforofo’ fight, as being experienced in the lower house.