Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, Chief of Staff to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and former Speaker of the House of Representatives has explained why the president did not attach portfolios to the ministerial list sent to the 10th Senate for screening and confirmation.
While addressing journalists after the list was submitted, Hön Gbajabiamila said that the president wanted to retain the discretionary power to shuffle his cabinet or move ministers around because attachment of portfolios could complicate things.
“What happens then if you change your mind? Do you then bring the person back for screening again, because the President is at liberty to change your mind?
“For instance, if I decide I want somebody as Minister of Labour, and then after setting the name, later on, I decide that, you know what, I didn’t know this about this person, this person would actually be better with another portfolio.
“And meanwhile, the senate has screened that person for that particular initial portfolio, what happens then? Do you now rescreen the person?
“So, a lot of these things have their merits and demerits, advantages and disadvantages.
“I like the idea of attaching portfolios, I actually do, because it makes it necessary for the Senate to know exactly what you’re asking and what you’re looking for.
“But for now, it’s been thought wise that we stick to the tradition of sending the names and then whilst the screening processes going on allowing the Mr. President and his team to to look at the portfolios and the characters and see how they fit.
“The first step that he has done is that these are people that can work wherever you put them, except these specialized fields like attorney general and what have you.
“But in the main in most of the portfolios, he believes most of them can fit in anywhere. And what’s important is also that the Mr. President intends to separate portfolios or restructure the ministries in such a way you might be hearing of new ministries that were not standalone ministries before. So the process continues.”
He noted that the president’s team will work on appropriate portfolios for each nominee while the screening is in progress.
Many people have criticised the list submitted by the president as having more politicians than technocrats quite contrary to the promise he made.
“Well, first of all, I mean, I’m sure you all know that the government is not fully formed until a cabinet is in place. And that process started a while ago culminating in the delivery of ministerial nominees.
“The President took his time, spent a lot of time going through, did a lot of due diligence, going through the nominees one by one.
“As you know he had 60 days from the time of inauguration, as stipulated in the Constitution. He has fulfilled that requirement of the Constitution by submitting 28 names today.
“As his letter stated, and was read on the floor of the Senate, the remainder names, not sure how many, probably about 12, maybe 13, will be forwarded to the Senate in the coming days.
“As far as the nominees themselves are concerned, and like I said, Mr. President took his time to sift through those names. He dissected those names with a fine tooth comb. And that’s what you’ve seen. Each and every one, I believe, of the persons on that list are worth being on that list.”
It would be recalled that four former governors, including the immediate past Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike, former Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai, former Cross River governor Ben Ayade and former Osun governor, Gboyega Oyetola made the list of ministerial nominees.
The list comes two days before the deadline stipulated by the constitution as amended by the ninth Assembly which gives the president only 60 days to unveil his cabinet members.
Section 42 of the constitution states that “(a) 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;
(b) not less than ten per cent of persons appointed as Ministers shall be women:Provided that the President may appoint a Minister at any other time during his tenure and such appointment shall be subject to confirmation by the Senate.”
