•Jonathan to send final names of nominees this week
President Goodluck Jonathan is set to send to the Senate this week for confirmation hearing, a list of 10 ministerial nominees drawn from nine states of the federation.
The president, at a meeting in Abuja on January 9 with Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftains from the North-west geopolitical zone, had told them that he was ready with the ministerial list, which he would send to the National Assembly for approval after resumption from its recess. The National Assembly resumes tomorrow.
THISDAY checks revealed that those on the final shortlist being considered by the president are Musiliu Obanikoro (Lagos); Aminu Wali and Mrs. Jemila Salik (Kano); Mrs. Laurentia Laraba Mallam (Kaduna); Mrs. Eyakenyi Akon (Akwa Ibom); Felix Bilitan Tangwami (Adamawa); Hon. Mohammed Wakil (Borno); Abdul Jelili Oyewale Adesiyan (Osun); Alhaji Tureta Arzika (Sokoto); and Tamuno Danagogo (Rivers).
While Wali is Nigeria’s Ambassador to China, Obanikoro was ambassador to Ghana. Salik, the other nominee from Kano State, is a lawyer.
Wakil, the Borno State nominee, is a former Majority Leader in the House of Representatives and Mallam from Kaduna is a former chairperson of Zangon Kataf Local Government Area.
The Osun nominee, Adesiyan, was commissioner for education under the administration of Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola but there are speculations that Tangwami, the nominee from Adamawa, could be dropped in view of the prevailing politics in the state following the ouster of Alhaji Bamanga Tukur as PDP national chairman.
Danagogo from Rivers and Arzika from Sokoto are both former commissioners in their respective states. Feelers from the presidency revealed that the former may have bagged his nomination on account of his joining forces against his former principal, Governor Rotimi Amaechi, who has defected from the ruling party to the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC).
One name that is conspicuously missing from the list is that of Senator Isaiah Balat, currently a special adviser to Vice-President Namadi Sambo, who had earlier been tipped for a ministerial post.
Presidency sources confirmed that Balat was on the initial list and had been cleared by the security agencies before his name was replaced by the president last week.
According to insiders, the attention of the president was brought to the fact that Balat’s confirmation as a minister would disrupt the gender equilibrium of having two female ministers from each of the six geo-political zones.
The two female ministers from the zone, Prof. Ruqayyatu Rufa’i (Jigawa) who was in charge of education and Hajia Hadiza Mailafia (Kaduna) who superintended over the environment ministry, were dropped last September in a major cabinet shake-up.
Sources said the gender calculation, which fitted perfectly with the desire of the vice-president to have Balat continue as his adviser, led to the nomination of another female as the ministerial nominee from Kaduna as his replacement. The nominee is a Christian from the southern part of the state, to balance the ethno-religious politics of Kaduna.
This gender balancing, according to sources, also led to the nomination of a female from Akwa Ibom State to replace Ms Ama Pepple (Rivers) who had been dropped. The president was said to have prevailed upon Akwa Ibom State Governor, Chief Godswill Akpabio, to nominate a woman so that there would also be two female ministers from the South-south in the cabinet.
Source: Thisday
