Former Speaker of the Nigerian Senate, Yakubu Dogara has said Red Chamber has to be more careful in the future when screening presidential nominees.
Dogara was reacting to outcry over how Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Pantami, was screened following his alleged ties to terror groups, which he later renounced.
The former Speaker, who spoke in Owo on Sunday, April 25, 2021, when he attended the 10th convocation ceremony of the Achievers Univeŕsity, said there was something missing during the screening of Pantami.
On whether it was morally right for Pantami to remain a Minister, Dogara explained that morality was not conterminous with law.
He however stated the lessons from Pantami experience was for everybody to always put the country first.
His word: “It appears something was missing. I don’t know what was the missing link but certainly something was missing. In the future, they (Senate) will be more careful and thorough in the process of screening nominees.
“Sometimes morality is not conterminous with law. I’m a lawyer but we’ve been thought to distinguish between morality and law. What is moral may not necessarily be legal and what is legal may not necessarily be moral.
“I think to a larger society, it’s a call on us to examine what we do, whether we’re young or old, it’s important we always put this country first and be careful of what we do, so that later in life we don’t turn to regret what we’ve done as young people.”
He added: “What is going on in schools, kidnapping of students must stop. It’s either we put security in schools or we return to borderless learning which I believe the level of our infrastructural development may not be able to accommodate at the moment.
“So what we need now is to enable those schools to be safe. We already have problems of out of school children in Nigeria. At the last count, I think 13.1 million children were out of school. So, kidnapping students will discourage further children from going to school and even parents from sending their wards to schools.”
