Despite talks and speculations from various quarters that President Bola Tinubu has finally made ready his highly anticipated ministerial list for onward screening and confirmation by the Senate with plans to make the appointments before the July 28th deadline, THEWILL has reliably gathered that nothing could be farther than the truth. The list is far from ready.
Considering that he had promised to send the list to the senate in batches to make the screening easier, Tinubu isn’t even ready with one batch. Infact, late last week, the media was awash with news that the president had finally forwarded the ministerial list to the Senate who would in turn invite those listed for screening. Unfortunately, that was nothing short of a fake news as the much-touted list is currently hanging. Tinubu wants to present a perfect list by the time it is made public. Perfect in the sense that he is being careful not to offend any section of the country and is thus trying hard to appease a lot of political interests across board with the ministers he appoints.
Little wonder it is being referred to as the ‘ministerial list of unity.’ For this reason, the list has reportedly been tweaked a dozen times; each time it seems that he has perfected the list, something, a name or situation surrounding a name crops up, forcing him to return to the drawing board to have it tweaked again.
For instance, Akinwunmi Ambode’s rapprochement has brought about a different dynamic to the already prepared ministerial list. The former Lagos State governor is being considered as a nominee from the state, thus displacing Wale Edun who was pencilled down to represent the state. Now Edun is being moved as a former nominee from Lagos State to Ogun State.
Edun who was the Honourable Commissioner for Finance in Lagos State during Tinubu’s two term tenure as governor is currently the Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Monetary Policy.
Similarly, with the resignations of Adamu Abdullahi, the national chairman of the All Progressives Congress Party, APC and Iyiola Omisore, the national secretary of the party, the list needed to be tweaked again as Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, the immediate past governor of Kano State whose name was initially pencilled down as a minister is now being considered to take over the position of the national chairman of the party.
Also, former Osun State governor, Gboyega Oyetola, whose name made it to the list, is now being considered to replace Omisore, a position he is not too keen on. Infact, THEWILL reliably gathered that as at last week, a few people were still being asked to submit their curriculum vitaes for possible consideration to be included in the list.
But the earlier Tinubu gets the list ready, the better as that is the only way the economy can get formally kick started. While he already has the ideas on how he wants to run the country, these ideas unfortunately can’t run on their own.
This is where the ministers come in. Without them, he can’t execute his supposed flawless ideas or get policies to be executed. Time is fast ticking.
