Lanre Issa-Onilu, former national publicity director of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has explained the reason behind the apparent delay in President Bola Tinubu’s inauguration and swearing-in of ministers.
According to him, the president is doing some restructuring and working out details of job descriptions before inaugurating his ministers, hence the delay is deliberate.
Naija News recalls that President Tinubu sent a list of 48 ministerial nominees for Senate screening and confirmation, but on August 7 lawmakers confirmed 45 of the nominees. The three others – Nasir el-Rufai, former governor of Kaduna; Stella Okotete (Delta) and Danladi Abubakar (Taraba) were not confirmed due to pending security clearance.
The confirmed list was then turned over to the president by the Senate. Since then, however, the president has yet to inaugurate the approved ministers.
Speaking about the delay during an appearance on Channels TV’s Sunrise Daily program on Wednesday, Issa-Onilu said there is nothing to worry about as the delay is due to the ongoing restructuring and the need to build a solid base to lay.
He added that the nomenclature of some ministries would be changed and Nigerians would hear names they are not familiar with for such ministries.
In his words, “What we have to ask is that we have to make sure we lay a solid foundation even for the cabinet to come in and take off.
“This is a new government and Asiwaju is a technocrat and if you bring someone to work, you must have a job description for that person.
“They will be inaugurated on Monday. We have ministries, the president may have his ideas on how the ministries should work.
“Maybe he wants to tinker with the existing structure and needs to prepare the bed before asking someone to lie on it.
“That’s the only way to get things going.
“You don’t want to bring in a minister and say: wait a minute, you have to restructure the base. Restructuring is underway.
“You are going to hear ministries in terms of nomenclature that you are not familiar with. And those are intentional to make sure you provide the necessary will to get things done quickly enough.