A member of the House of Representatives, Yusuf Gagdi, has said the Department of State Service, DSS, didn’t send any report to the National Assembly on the past extremist views of the embattled Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, during his ministerial screening in 2019.
The lawmaker, who is the Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Navy, and a member representing Pankshin, Kanke and Kanam Federal Constituency in Plateau State, spoke on Monday while featuring on TVC breakfast show, ‘Your View’ said he was amongst those who screened Pantami in 2019.
The lawmaker was reacting to a claim by a former Assistant Director with the DSS, Dennis Amachree, that the secret police screened Pantami before his confirmation as minister, but the minister sailed through National Assembly screening due to a lot of factors including federal character balancing.
When asked whether the DSS sent Pantami’s past extremist views to the National Assembly during his screening in 2019, Gagdi said, “I don’t think it is true that there was in that report regarding Pantami to the National Assembly, quote me anywhere.”
“What is clear which I stand by is that this pressure which some Nigerians who are privileged to know the commitment and disposition of Pantami when he was 34, why didn’t they bring it up to the attention of the National Assembly during the screening of the ministerial nominees?
“These Nigerians that have access to this very important information, what stopped them from hitting the media with it at the time the screening exercise was being conducted? That was the time the National Assembly had the power to reject nominations of the President or to confirm nominations. If the information had gone out and the National Assembly had gone ahead to confirm Pantami, then I will accept responsibility that the National Assembly had done extremely bad,” the lawmaker added.
