Lobbyists in overdrive over Jonathan’s next cabinet

According to Section 147 of the Constitution, the Nigerian president has the right to choose his ministers and form a cabinet. However, a convoluted selection system which panders to governors and party strongmen ensures that it is a right that Goodluck Jonathan cannot freely exercise.

Although there is a clamour for a lean Federal Executive Council largely made up of technocrats, as Theophilus Danjuma noted at the valedictory session of the Presidential Advisory Committee Wednesday, there is little hope of this happening.

The president himself said that: “Your suggestion for a smaller cabinet is excellent and I agree with you, but this cannot be achieved without constitutional amendment.” The constitution stipulates that each state in the country must produce a minister.

But that is only part of the problem. There are other critical factors that make it almost impossible for the president to ensure that most of these 36 or so people are vibrant minds with proven skills, rather than political jobbers.

Already there are indications that, contrary to reports that the president will be choosing ministers based solely on their proven competence and qualifications, the cabinet will as usual be made up largely of politicians and their cronies.

Any hope that things will be different this time around was complicated by the letter the Peoples Democratic Party’s acting chairman, Mohammed Bello Haliru sent to state councils of the party asking them to “nominate ten eminently qualified persons to occupy executive positions”.

NEXT learnt that the process has since been hijacked by the governors in states where the incumbent is from the ruling party. In many instances where the governors failed re-election or have completed their tenures, they have chosen to put their names on top of the list.

In Ondo, Yobe, Anambra and Oyo states, the party is enmeshed in crisis over the list. A founding member of the party in Oyo, Wole Oyelese, said Mr Jonathan should “disregard any list of nominees that might have been sent by the governor (Adebayo Alao-Akala) for ministerial and other positions, as it has been done without consultation with any other leader who doesn’t see eye to eye with him.”

Mohammed Abdulsalami Ohiare, a member of the president’s campaign council told newsmen that Mr Jonathan is unhappy with the way governors unilaterally took over the compiling of the lists. He said the president may actually dump their nominations into the waste basket.