A former Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu, says President Bola Tinubu should not trust some of his righthand men in recommending persons for ministerial offices, especially ahead of his planned cabinet reshuffle.
Shittu made this statement during an interview with Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Thursday.
According to him, some members of the President’s kitchen cabinet who should be on the lookout for technocrats to be appointed ministers have vested interests and would only recommend their persons.
“You cannot trust anybody, even if you are talking of kitchen cabinet,” Shittu said, adding that some of the current members of the President’s cabinet have underperformed.
The ex-minister said, “This will be the first time he (Tinubu) would be recruiting people from all parts of the country most of whom he may never have met in life. But he may just be riding on the recommendation, perhaps, of interested power blocs within the party who would give information and sell their candidate for one reason or the other.
“Mr President has an opportunity to decide what he wants. If you are not there and if he does not tell you exactly what he wants, it would be very difficult but I think one failing in our system in this country is that when people are appointed, or about to be appointed, we don’t have a kind of orientation exercise which perhaps will take a week or two weeks to school those to be given jobs to understand the priorities of their employer.”
Tinubu, ex-Lagos governor, appointed 48 ministers in August 2023, three months after his inauguration. The Senate immediately screened and confirmed the ministers. One of the ministers, Betta Edu, was suspended in January while another, Simon Lalong, moved to the Senate.
There have been growing calls for the President to reshuffle his cabinet as many Nigerians are not impressed by the performance of many of the ministers, especially in the face of unprecedented inflation, excruciating economic situation and rising insecurity.
This week, presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga said the President would reshuffle his cabinet but didn’t give a time to the reorganisation.