The Senate has confirmed Muttaqha Rabe Darma as a Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria following his screening on the floor of the chamber.
Darma’s confirmation came after lawmakers conducted a question-and-answer session to assess his suitability for the role.
President Bola Tinubu had, on Wednesday, written to the Senate requesting Darma’s screening and subsequent confirmation as minister.
Tinubu forwarded Darma’s nomination to fill the vacancy created by the departure of Ahmed Dangiwa as the Minister of Housing and Urban Development.
Senate President Godswill Akpabio, who read the President’s communication during plenary, referred the request to the Committee of the Whole for consideration, directing that it report back promptly.
The committee’s recommendation was subsequently adopted, leading to Darma’s confirmation.
Speaking during his screening, Darma said, “You see, people starting business in real estate, before you know it, they are rich. Before you know it, everybody has bought their houses. Then, government houses are abandoned.
“Well, the profit from doing government work is the welfare of the people. But, because most of these people who are handling these issues are not really put into it to make sure that it works, that’s where I believe the failure is coming from. Now, that’s about accessibility and affordability of these houses.
“We will make sure that they are available and affordable in each way. Now, let me come to Senator Binos Yaroe. Now, he said to me, have you finished doing the philanthropic work that you are here now? No, sir, I have not.
“I have been born a philanthropist and I will continue to do it until the end of my life. But I will tell you that when I left here, when I left Abuja, I went to Katina and built a training facility that’s called Human Development Centre. In that centre, from 2013 to date, we have trained over 167,000 young people in different skills, some of them hard, some of them soft skills.”
“So, at the end of the day, all this will do to me is to expose me to becoming more philanthropic by probably extending it to other states where we will also make a lot of impact, just like we did in Katina,” he added.