As Nigerians continue to wait for the list of President Muhammadu Buhari’s ministers nearly one month after the president was sworn in for a second four-year term on May 29, the Presidential Villa, Abuja has turned into a Mecca of sorts as various political actors, especially serving and former governors, lobby for positions.
BusinessDay findings show various groups have besieged the Villa to lobby for ministerial positions, including ethnic-based socio-cultural groups.
But despite the intense lobbying by those seeking ministerial positions, a source in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) told BusinessDay emphatically that “the President already has his list” ready and “is just waiting for the National Assembly to reconvene to submit the list to them”.
The APC source, who craved anonymity, insisted that the ministerial “list is ready” and that the delay in making it public was “strategic”.
“Power sharing has always been used to pacify aggrieved party members who lost out during party primaries and as a reward for those who invested time and material resources in electing the President,” the source said.
“President Buhari is mindful of the post-2015 election crisis that rocked our party and turned those who brought him to power against him and he will not want to make the same mistakes this time around,” he said.
There are also findings that many of the immediate past ministers are still hanging on in expectation that they would make the list of the new ministers.
Abubakar Malami, immediate past minister of justice, who chaired the Presidential Committee on Autonomy of State Legislature and Judiciary, is one former minster who appears expectant.
Malami on Tuesday led the committee to present the reports to President Buhari at the Presidential Villa, where he said despite the dissolution of the cabinet, the President has the prerogative to give him any assignment.
“I am here based on the powers of Mr. President who exercises the powers of his prerogatives to appoint anyone, and as a Nigerian for that matter. This remains a prerogative of Mr. President,” he said.
Some of the immediate past governors with strong chances of making President Buhari’s cabinet include Akinwunmi Ambode who, sources told BusinessDay, is being pencilled down to head the Budget and National Planning Ministry.
It was also gathered that Jibrilla Bindow, immediate past governor of Adamawa State, is battling to wrestle the state’s slot from Buba Marwa, a former military administrator of Lagos and Borno States.
Marwa was very visible in the last campaigns that returned President Buhari to office and is said to be very close to the powers that be at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa, including the First Lady, Aisha Buhari.
The First Lady is seen as playing a strong role this time around in determining who gets what and where as she has insisted that she would work against hijack of the process leading to the selection of political appointees in this “Next Level”.
There are also indications that some of the immediate past ministers have engaged several strategies to retain their posts. While some are said to have planted their cronies in the ministries they headed, some have refused to remove their personal effects from those ministries with the belief that they would be returned to their posts.
Findings revealed that no major decision is taken by senior officials of those ministries without due consultation with these former ministers.
As a matter of fact, permanent secretaries of the said ministries still hold secret meetings with the former ministers so as to keep them abreast of happenings in the respective ministries.
Some senior civil servants at some ministries were optimistic that some of the ministers would return.
“We take it that our minister (Rotimi Amaechi) is on leave,” an anonymous source at the Ministry of Transportation, where the portrait of the former minister was still visibly displayed at the reception and the offices of directors of various departments as at the time BusinessDay visited, said.
“We are very optimistic that Amaechi will come back to this ministry. He has done exceptionally well for the ministry. If you are following the trends in Nigeria, you will know that he is one of the best hands in Buhari’s first term. Even a blind man can see that he has done well in the rail sector,” another civil servant at the ministry said.
TONY AILEMEN & STELLA ENENCHE, Abuja
