Ministerial list: Tinubu associates in the dark as deadline looms

With barely four days to the expiration of the 60-day deadline by the law for President Bola Tinubu to make public his list of ministers, many of the associates of the president are still in the dark, National Daily has gathered.

This is very unlike his predecessor, Muhamadu Buhari who did not name a cabinet until five months after his inauguration in 2015 but there was no constitutional timeframe then.

According to the new law, the president has till July 28 to submit the list to the Senate in line with section 42(a) of the constitution which states that “the nomination of any person to the office of a Minister for confirmation by the Senate shall be done within sixty days after the date the President has taken the oath of office”.

But as of press time, President Tinubu he’s yet to submit the list, and is still working on the list to meet the deadline.

According to sources even though most of the nominations are settled, there are states posing a challenge due to rancor between some party leaders and elders in the state.

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The president is said to be making the decisions all alone, shutting other party leaders out of the decision till the last point.

It was also gathered that the nomination of Abdullahi Ganduje, former governor of Kano state, as the national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) is one of the gaps Tinubu is trying to fill.

Ganduje had been pencilled down as a minister but the forced resignation of Adamu Abdullahi as chairman led to further adjustments of the list.

Meanwhile, supporters of ex-governors Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano and Nyesom Wike of Rivers have been urged to disregard the report that the two former governors have been removed from the ministerial list of President Bola Tinubu because of the report from the DSS scrutiny.

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Coordinator of Bola Ahmed Tunubu Vanguard, in an interview, urged the public to disregard the report as it was fake news.

According to Daily Independent, the president allegedly removed the names of the former governors from his ministerial list over the report from the Department of State Service (DSS).

Wike was also alleged to have raised his voice against President Tinubu when he learnt that his name and ex-Governor Ganduje did not pass through the scrutiny of the DSS.

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But Chief Tony Okocha, the coordinator of the Bola Ahmed Tinubu Vanguard (BAT-V), in an interview, dismissed the report, saying that “the rumour is a complete work of mischief makers”.

The APC chieftain said the former governor of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was a great performer who was loved by Nigerians and had great respect for elders.

According to Okocha, Wike is a lover of President Tinubu, and this was why he worked for the president in Rivers State during the 2023 presidential election in the state, adding that the allegation has no basis.