Tinubu Hugs Deadline, Changes 4 Ministerial List Names

ABUJA _____About four days to the expiration of the 60-day provision for the President to submit names of ministerial nominees to the Senate for screening and confirmation, President Bola Tinubu is yet to fulfil this constitutional provision.

Recall that President Tinubu took the oath of office on May 29, when former President Muhammadu Buhari handed over the mantle of leadership to him.

Multiple sources in the Senate said that the upper legislative chamber is yet to receive the final list of the ministerial nominees.

Sources at the presidency had last week hinted that the list was ready, but that a few adjustments were being made by the President.

One of the sources disclosed that four names initially penciled down by the President in four states, have been withdrawn and replaced with new names.

Another source also disclosed that the final list was supposed to be submitted to the Senate last week but for the opposition against the immediate past governor of Kano State, Abdullahi Ganduje, who is said to be the President’s preferred candidate to replace Senator Abdullahi Adamu as national chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC.

Ganduje, it was gathered, was initially considered for a ministerial slot but for the resignation of Senator Adamu, which was said to have propelled the President to nominate him as possible replacement for the former chairman, being from the North-West where Adamu hails from.

This is said to be generating crisis as some stalwarts of the APC have argued that the former governor of Nasarawa State, Senator Tanko Al-Makura, who is from the North-Central as the former chairman, was more “cool-headed than Ganduje.”

Senator Al-Makura was one of the leading aspirants for the position during the last APC convention but was prevailed upon by the former President, Muhammadu Buhari, to step down for Senator Adamu.

The former Nasarawa State governor at the time was accused of being Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s ally, who was then one of APC’s presidential aspirants.

But sources familiar with the intrigues playing out in the choice of the APC chairman, hinted that the opposition to Ganduje’s choice is responsible for the inability of the President to submit the ministerial list to the Senate last week.

Although it was speculated that the ministerial list was forwarded to the Red Chamber last week, a highly placed source while responding to Vanguard’s inquiries, said: “We are yet to get the final list of the ministerial nominees.

“If we have received it, the Clerk of the National Assembly would have read it out, there will be no need to keep the list if it is received.”

Another source told Vanguard that as of Friday, the President was still editing the list and will submit the final list this week.

The source said: “As of Friday, the list is with Baba but I don’t know of yesterday (Saturday). Every minute he is changing some names, up till Friday when he travelled, he still edited some names. But by this week, he will call the Presidential Liaison Officer to the Senate and give him the list.

“It’s this week that he will send the list and Senate will clear the nominees this week.”