President Bola Tinubu is finalising his ministerial list, marking his time with consultations across political and geo-political divide, but has closely guarded his thoughts on who makes the cut and keeping pundits guessing, THEWILL can authoritatively confirm.
With the Senate scheduled to reconvene on Tuesday, July 4, 2023, it is expected that their first legislative task will be to approve the appointment of service chiefs recently made by the president and then subsequently screen and approve ministerial nominees.
Tinubu’s consultation, however, is in line with the Constitutional provision in Section 147, which says: “(1) There shall be such offices of Ministers of the Government of the Federation as may be established by the President. (2) Any appointment to the office of Minister of the Government of the Federation shall, if the nomination of any person to such office is confirmed by the Senate, be made by the President. (3) Any appointment under subsection (2) of this section by the President shall be in conformity with the provisions of section 14(3) of this Constitution: -provided that in giving effect to the provisions aforesaid the President shall appoint at least one Minister from each State, who shall be an indigene of such state.”
Even so, the prominent names so far in the front row, according to THEWILL checks, are acolytes, political associates and a sprinkle of technocrats.
The political associates are either party members from the governing All Progressives Congress, APC, or from other parties who may help the President to consolidate his grip on politics ahead of the 2027 General Election, which echoed through the South-West political landscape during his whistle-stop visit among traditional rulers and Imams offering Sallah prayers.
Some others are longtime associates whose solid combination of expertise and trust make them indispensable to the execution of Tinubu’s envisioned policy framework. As for portfolios, only a few are clear so far even though that may become visible after the ministerial nominees have been approved by the Senate.
TINUBU Vs APC
There is another angle to the developing story that may see the President up against the leadership of the APC in the states and Abuja. THEWILL gathered that state chapters of the party particularly states without governors from the ruling party have since compiled names of persons it considers suitable for appointment into the federal cabinet, parastatals and agencies as well as special advisers. The names were forwarded to the party’s National Working Committee, NWC, in Abuja to intervene with Tinubu. The President, this newspaper learnt, is so far non-committal.
MINISTERS ON POLITICAL CONSIDERATION
First on the list of those whose political alliance will go a long way to help the President to navigate geo-politics ahead of his re-election bid in 2027 is Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso.
Though the strongman of Kano politics with a sizeable presence in the North-West geo-political zone through his Kwankwasiyya Movement is of the opposition New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), he will be coming into the government as a ‘big catch’, according to a ranking APC member.
Kwankwaso’s coming into government, sources say, is threefold: Kano has a large voting population, which can and does spill over into neighbouring Jigawa State.
For a master tactician like Tinubu with an eye on the 2027 poll, it is better now “to grab and run with it,” that is Kwankwaso, to use the President’s catch phrase.
Secondly, making Kwankwaso a member of the kitchen cabinet now will be safer politically than to leave him out of sight, in a sense that he is politically closer to the main opposition PDP, his foundation party, than the APC, to which he defected under a cloud in 2015 and left to take over the New Nigeria Peoples Party, NNPP, after briefly defecting back to the PDP in 2022. He is currently the leader of the NNPP, under whose platform he ran for the 2023 presidential election.
Thirdly, the source said Kwankwaso’s political capital would be bankable as a vice presidential candidate in 2027 than the current VP, Kashim Shetimma, whose Borno state returned abysmally lower figure than Kano and its environs.
ANOTHER ANGLE TO THE POLITICAL CONSIDERATION
The other dynamics playing out in consideration of the ministers is the influence of the President’s close associates. Some of them helped to win the votes in their states for Tinubu, while others are coordinating the recruitment of names in their respective states.
In the first consideration is former Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, who coordinated the G-5 aggrieved PDP governors to undermine their party and helped the APC and Tinubu to victory.
Still pursuing his anti-PDP politics, the former Rivers governor is currently working night and day to coordinate opposition to the emergence of a Minority Leader of the Senate from the camp of the party’s presidential candidate in the 2015 poll, Atiku Abubakar.
Wike is battling to stop the emergence of former Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State as Senate Minority Leader. For all his efforts, he is said to have been penciled down for the post of either Minister of Transport or Niger Delta Ministry.
As previously reported exclusively by THEWILL, a party man and dependable ally of the president, Senator Adams Oshiomhole, representing Edo North, is also, in a way, linked with the politics playing out in Edo State, to make him a representative of the state as a Minister.
However, PDP’s Vice National Chairman South, Dan Orbi and leader of the aggrieved PDP legacy group in the state linked with the Wike-led G-5 governors, is said to be fighting to be the nominee, claiming that it was part of the deal they struck with Tinubu and the APC in return for support during the 2023 general election.
In Delta State, Chief James Ibori, a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, is believed to be playing an influential role in the choice of who emerges the nominee from the state. Former Deputy Senate President and governorship candidate of the party in the state, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, former cabinet Minister and APC presidential campaign spokesman, Festus Keyamo, SAN and David Edevbie, the governorship candidate of the PDP in the state are believed to be frontrunners.
In Ekiti, the ministerial battle in the state appears to be between former Governor Kayode Fayemi and the coordinator of the South-West Agenda for Asiwaju, SWAGA, Dayo Adeyeye. Both men are positioning to determine who gets what in the state.
Again, both have been ministers before; Adeyeye was Minister of State for Works under President Goodluck Jonathan, while Fayemi, a two-time governor, was Minister of Solid Mineral Development in President Muhammadu Buhari’s government. As acolytes of Tinubu, their fate may depend on the president.
Former Osun governor and cousin of the president, Adegboyega Oyetola and his counterpart in Cross River State, Professor Ben Ayade, who lost his senatorial bid after serving out his two-terms as governor, first on the platform of the PDP and then the APC, are also said to be in top consideration for their states.
A WHIFF OF TECHNOCRATS
Leading the pack of technocrats in the ministerial list is Muhammed Ali Pate from Bauchi State, a former Minister of State for Health under President Jonathan, before he resigned in 2013 to pick up a job as a Professor in Duke’s University’s Global Health Institute and last week rejected appointment as CEO of GAVI, the global vaccine alliance.
Yemi Cardoso, the current chairman of Citi Bank and former Commissioner of Economic Planning and Budget in Lagos State, is also tipped as the likely ministerial nominee for Lagos.
For Ogun State, if president Tinubu sticks to his original plan, then Wale Edun would clearly be the nominee and Minister of Finance. But the President lately, according to multiple sources, is toying with the idea of appointing Edun as governor of the CBN though some close advisers have advised that he would be more impactful in Finance. THEWILL recalls that Tinubu had nominated Edun to be Buhari’s Finance Minister in 2015 but that bid failed with Kemi Adeosun, a nominee of then governor, Ibikunle Amosun emerging.
About the Author
Amos Esele is the Deputy Editor of THEWILL Newspaper. He has over two decades of experience on the job.
