yesterday in a shocking move that sparked
questions on the motive of the action.
Five factors accounted for the ministers sack, The
Nation learnt. According to highly-placed sources in government,
some of the reasons are: non-performance; security
reports on alleged corruption; political allegiance
and doubtful loyalty to the President; poor
management of turn-key projects; and the crisis in
the ruling Peoples Democratic Party(PDP).
A source, who pleaded not to be named because of
the sensitivity of the matter, said: You will recall
that the President asked the ministers to sign a
performance bond. About four of the nine ministers
failed to live up to expectations in the assessment
of the Presidency. Infact, three of the ministers were yet to understand their mandate after being in office for
two and a half years. One of the ministers had more
than 20 agencies under him but his performance
was poor.
We cannot also rule out alleged corruption acts by two to three of the ministers. For instance, there is a
particular outgoing minister who forced the
parastatals under the ministry to buy a N17million
Sports Utility Vehicle SUV for personal use.
The money-spinning parastatals were unhappy
but they had to do it. It also got to a ridiculous extent that the minister was always asking for
remittance of interest accruable from funds kept in
some banks by parastatals under the ministry.
Another minister had problems with award of
contracts, some of which were rated as inferior. The
agencies supervised by the minister made a joint demand for change.
Ironically, the minister lost a plum cabinet position
at a time a platform was created in a state to fight
political adversaries of Jonathan. The minister was
dazed when the President announced the sack.
According to a source, there was also the alleged tardiness in the award of the $1.3billion
(N212billion) Zungeru Hydro Project.
The Federal Government is expected to spend
about N303million in generating one megawatt of
electricity. The hydro project is said to be one of the
most expensive in the world. Although no corruption infraction was found
against Hajiya Zainab Kuchi, she was sacrificed for
not being vigilant, the source claimed.
It was also learnt that the alleged overstaying in the
cabinet by the former Minister of National Planning,
Dr. Shamsuddeen Usman, may have led to his exit. Another source said: I think Shamsudeen has
been in the cabinet since 2007. Though he did well
in designing the Performance Benchmark for the
Federal Executive Council(FEC), the nation
planning system has not improved.
An egg-head, who is a former Deputy Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria(CBN), he may have lost his
post because of difficulty in measuring his
achievements which appeared to be long term. And
you know, politicians have no patience for long
term gains.
As at press time, political motives were being read into the sack of some of the ministers but a source
in the Presidency disputed these.
Some ministers were reportedly sent packing
because of the rebellion of the G-7 governors in the
PDP.
People alluded to this factor because some of the Ministers were nominated by their governors. Such
Ministers are Prof. Ruqayyatu Rufai(nominated by
Governor Sule Lamido); Zainab Kuchi(by Governor
Babangida Aliyu of Niger State);
Alhaji Bukar Tijjani (from Borno now being controlled by APC without being unable to mobilise PDP to launch counter- attack), said the source, adding:
For Shamsudeen, who was not nominated by
Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso, his alleged cold war
with the Kano State Governor led to the
factionalisation of PDP in his state.
He became a political risk for Jonathan to retain him in the cabinet. But, contrary to political permutations, some
ministers from the rebellious states, like Adamawa ,
Rivers and Kwara, are in the cabinet because of
performance without anyone touching them.
Ms Amal Pepple, who is from Rivers State, is believed to have lost her job for being unable to
read the Presidents mood on the crisis in the state.
No comments:
Post a Comment