The Senate has referred to its Committee on Niger Delta Affairs for screening, the confirmation of the appointment of Lauretta Onochie as the substantive Chairperson, Board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
Also referred for screening are 14 others as members of the commission.
The resolution followed the presentation of an Executive Communication by the Senate Leader, Ibrahim Gobir, during plenary on Tuesday, December 13, 2022.
Gobir in the presentation, said that President Muhammadu Buhari had written the Senate in November, seeking the confirmation of the 15 nominees.
In his remarks, President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, referred the nominees to the Senate Committee on Niger Delta Affairs for screening.
He said that: “The committee has one week to carry out further legislative action on the nominees and to report back on Tuesday, Dec. 20.
“This is because we have to finish the confirmation before we close for our Christmas and new year break.
“And we are going to consider the 2023 Budget by Tuesday or latest Thursday.
“I know it is tasking but it is doable. The committee should start work immediately.”
The Quest Times reports that Buhari had on Wednesday, November 3, 2022, written the Senate, seeking the confirmation of the appointment of Lauretta Onochie as the substantive Chairperson, Board of the NDDC.
The other nominees include Dimgba Erugba – State representative (Abia, South East), Ene Wilcox ( Akwa Ibom, State Representative, South South ), Pius Odudu (Edo, South South), Gbenga Odegba (South West, Ondo) and Anthony Ekene (South East, Imo state).
Others are Onyekachi Dimgba (Rivers State South South), Mohammed Abubakar (Zonal Representative, Nasarawa), Tallen Mamma, (North East Representative, Adamawa), Sodique Sani (North West, Zonal Representative), Samuel Ibukun (MD), Charles Airhiavbere, (Executive of Finance) and Charles Ogunmola (Executive Director Project , South West).
Before the appointment, Onochie was the Special Assistant on New Media to President Buhari. She was one of the president’s most despised and loathed aides on social media, before the 2019 general elections.
67-year-old Onochie was rejected by the Senate in July 2021, after President Buhari put her name forward as one of the electoral umpire’s (INEC) commissioners to represent her native Delta State. Lawmakers had posited at the time that her appointment violated federal character principles.
With Twitter and Facebook as her forte, Onochie often defended some of the president’s most divisive and unpopular policies to no end, while hurling insults at opposition elements.
A former educator in the UK, Lauretta Onochie appears to have mellowed and gone off the social media radar, since legislators rejected her a year ago.