President
Muhammadu Buhari’s decision to go outside the permutations of political
enthusiasts to appoint key officers of the administration was a fallout
of the endless squabbling and the fait accompli that was forced on him
by political opponents of his favorite for the post, former Governor
Tunde Fashola
The disappointments by political stakeholders from
the south nonetheless, the appointment of northern minorities and
Christians into key positions by the Buhari administration is meanwhile
receiving mixed welcome from the Northern minorities.
Buhari had
on Thursday sidestepped the favourite nominees including Fashola and
former Governor Ogbonnonya Onu to appoint Engr. David Lawal, the
national vice-chairman, Northeast, of the All
Progressives Congress, APC
as the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF.
Also
appointed was the former newspaper editor and banker, Alhaji Abba Kyari
as chief of staff while the taciturn disciplinarian and erstwhile chief
of staff to Buhari, Col. Hammed Ali (retd.) was appointed as the
Comptroller General of the Nigerian Customs Service.
Fashola had
been widely touted for the position largely on account of his
organisational acumen and strides in Lagos as governor. However, local
political opponents of the former governor, especially within the All
Progressives Congress, APC were said to have been largely uncomfortable
with his possible emergence as chief of staff, a position they believed
would have given him the impetus to dominate the Southwest APC political
leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Though Tinubu has recently
denied his personal involvement in the campaign against Fashola that was
mounted through publication of allegedly inflated contract awards by
his administration, his close associates were, however, known to have
deployed other political schemes to knock Fashola out of contention for
either the position of SGF or Chief of Staff.
The ultimate
weapon that was used in neutralising Fashola, Saturday Vanguard learnt,
was the nomination of a former commissioner in the Fashola
administration as the Deputy Chief of Staff to the president but
delegated to the office of the vice-president.Mr. Ade Ipaye,
SAN who worked as attorney general and commissioner for justice in the
second term of the Fashola administration, it was gathered has been
pencilled down as the deputy chief of staff to the president with
responsibilities of working under the vice-president, Prof. Yemi
Osinbajo, SAN.
The deployment of Mr. Ipaye, it was gathered,
became the political masterstroke that was used in knocking Fashola out
of reckoning in the stiff race for Chief of Staff.
Sources privy
to the development disclosed that those against Fashola took advantage
of the fact that Buhari is bent on operating a single presidency with
only one chief of staff who would oversee the president’s affairs and a
deputy chief of staff who would oversee the duties of the
vice-president. Given that Ipaye was projected to work with Osinbajo, it
became untenable to have another Lagosian in the person of Fashola work
as chief of staff.
“You cannot have two of them from Lagos
working as chief of staff and deputy chief of staff in the same
government,” a source privy to the development disclosed.Ipaye’s
choice as deputy chief of staff was also logical given that before his
appointment into the Fashola cabinet he had worked as special assistant
to Osinbajo when the latter was commissioner for justice and attorney
general in Lagos State in the Tinubu administration.
Meanwhile,
despite mutterings in some sections of the country about perceived
geopolitical lopsidedness in the appointments so far made by the
president, the appointment of Mr. Lawal as SGF was at the weekend being
welcomed as another elixir by Buhari to soothe the long cries of
marginalisation by northern minorities.
Mr. Lawal from Adamawa
State, a pastor and missionary, became the first Christian from the
North to get the high profile position of SGF. His appointment sources
said flowed from the comfort and confidence the president has in him
arising from his long association with the president.
Lawal was a
leading supporter of Buhari ahead of the presidential primaries and
helped to ensure that Buhari defeated Atiku Abubakar in the APC
presidential primaries in Adamawa State and the Northeast.
Besides
his integrity and political capacity that recommended him for the
office, Mr. Lawal’s emergence as SGF was at the weekend also receiving
critical acclaim by northern minorities on account of the long history
of marginalisation of Northern Christians into sensitive positions in
the recent past.
However, one northern leader was not impressed
yesterday saying that it was a move to lure the disenchanted northern
minorities back to the agenda of one north.
“This is just a move
to woo the northern minorities back to the Hausa Fulani agenda before
they will again humiliate us after they have achieved their purpose,”
the northern leader a former member of the National Assembly and
presidential aide told Saturday Vanguard yesterday.
Some have
alleged that it was part of the scheme to reintegrate the northern
minorities into the One North philosophy that the Northwest through
Governor Aminu Tambuwal gave rabid support for the emergence of Yakubu
Dogara as speaker of the House of Representatives.
Apparently
alluding to a deliberate effort to rebuild the relationship between the
northern minorities and the Hausa Fulani when he received a delegation
of Dogara’s Sayawa Community of Bogoro and Tafawa Balewa Local
Government Areas of Bauchi State who paid him a thank you visit in
appreciation of his role in the installation of Dogara as speaker,
Tambuwal had said:
“The relationship between people of Sokoto and
Bauchi States was amplified in the First Republic when the first Prime
Minister of Nigeria, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa worked in harmony with the
leader of his party and then Premier of Northern Nigeria, Sir Ahamdu
Bello.”
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