New ministers to be sworn in this week

Acting President Good-luck Jonathan is getting ready to swear in this week as many ministerial nominees as are cleared by the Senate so that the ministers can get down to work as quickly as possible.

THISDAY learnt that the Senate, which begins the screening of the 33 ministerial nominees whose names have been forwarded to it so far by the acting president, is set to clear as many of the nominees as possible before going for Easter Break by Thursday.

In the meantime, Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN), Prof. Joy Ogwu, is being tipped as the new Foreign Minister.

Mr. Mohammed Adoke (SAN) from Kogi State may emerge Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) and Justice Minister, while the Managing Director of the London-based investment bank, Goldman Sachs, Mr. Olusegun Aganga, may become the new Finance Minister.

The names of Adoke and Aganga are already on the ministerial list and would be screened along with others by the Senate from today, while Ogwu’s name, which is yet to be forwarded to the Senate by last night, may be sent to the lawmakers anytime from now to represent the South-south geo-political zone.

Ogwu held the forte as Foreign Minister for a brief period, when Prof. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala resigned her appointment as Foreign Minister, but was later formally deployed in the UN as Nigeria’s Permanent Representative.

The Foreign Minister has to be in place by April 9 when Nigeria is expected to sign bilateral agreement with the United States.

Meanwhile, lobbying of senators by ministerial nominees reached a crescendo at the weekend in Abuja as the prospective ministers moved to the territory ahead of their screening.

The lobbying, however, may have yielded some dividends as sources said some senators seem to be softening on their initial opposition to the nomination of some of the candidates.

But the Chair of the Senate Committee on Information and Media, Senator Ayogu Eze, has said the screening of the 33 nominees will be rigorous.

Acting President Goodluck Jonathan had initially forwarded a list of 25 ministerial nominees, which included seven members of the dissolved Executive Council of the Federation (EXCOF), to the Senate for confirmation.

He later added nine more names including two more members of the dissolved council.

THISDAY learnt that the confirmation hearing, subsequent to the screening of the nominees in the Committee of the Whole Senate, may not prove a difficult hurdle to scale.

There were also feelers that former Minister of National Planning, Senator Sanusi Daggash, may have secured a reprieve from his colleagues, many of whom are still angry about the role he allegedly played in the 2008 budget impasse between President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and the National Assembly.

It was gathered that Daggash (from Borno) has reached out to the leadership of the Senate and his colleagues in the fifth session who are now ranking senators to pacify their other colleagues.

Daggash, a first class brain, was in 2007 accorded the legislative privilege of “taking a bow before the Senate” without being taken through the rigours of questioning.

Every former member of the legislature at both national and state levels who appears before the Senate for screening is accorded that privilege.

Although, the Senate, as learnt, was planning to suspend the convention for this exercise because of Daggash, the pacific move by the nominee was believed to have paid off.

He may not be asked to take “a bow and go” but his confirmation may not be impeded in any way.

Also, nominees such as former Minister of Youth Development, Senator Akinlabi Olasunkanmi, and Vice-Chair of the Senate Committee on Aviation, Senator Bala Mohammed (who is a serving senator), may be asked to take a bow and go.

It was also learnt that the nomination of Mohammed Adoke (SAN) from Kogi State, which was originally opposed by two of the senators from the state - Smart Adeyemi and Otaru Ohize - now looks good to scale the Senate hurdle.

A former Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) who recommended Adoke to the acting president is said to have reached out to the angry senators for their understanding.

He was said to have presented to them an excellent testimonial of Adoke, whose antecedents were hitherto unknown to the senators.

During the last ministerial screening, Senator Uche Chukwumerije had kicked against the legislative privilege accorded former lawmakers who are nominees, saying that every nominee should be grilled so that Nigerians could have the benefit of insight into his or her capacity to understand and key into governance.

There were feelers that many of the nominees will scale the confirmation hearing hurdle.

But up till last night, the fate of former Information and Communications Minister Prof. Dora Akunyili was yet unknown.

Some senators from the North were said to be plotting her rejection given the role she played by submitting a memo to EXCOF asking that Jonathan be empowered in the absence of ailing President Yar’Adua.

It was learnt that the decision by the acting president not to nominate any of the close loyalists of Yar’ Adua in the dissolved cabinet such as former Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister Adamu Aliero and ex-Agric Minister Abba Sayyadi Ruma while he re-nominated Akunyili, his own loyalist, is being kicked against in some circles in the Senate.

Other members of the dissolved cabinet whose fate will be known in the next two or three days are Adetokunbo Kayode, Diezani Allison-Madueke, Shamsudeen Usman, Somo Nuhu Wya, Fidelia Njeze, Godsday Orubebe and Odein Ajumogobia.

In another develoment, the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) has protested the non-inclusion of a medical practitioner in the list of 33 ministerial nominees now before the Senate

A statement issued yesterday by NMA said it had “carefully studied the list of ministerial nominees sent to the Senate and wishes to express her confidence and belief that the acting president, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, will neither marginalise the members of the medical profession nor ignore their patriotic contributions to nation-building.

“It is curious that in the list of 33 nominees, there is no medical practitioner. We however recall the unique and remarkable role the acting president played (as Vice-President) in the resolution of the turbulence in the health sector last year (2009) engendered by the restiveness of doctors over the circularisation of the Consolidated Medical Salary Structure (CONMESS),” the association said.

NMA further stated that “the most appropriate health professional to lead the Federal Ministry of Health is a patriotic medical practitioner with integrity, sound administrative acumen, rich clinical experience and untainted record of service. It is only such a medical practitioner that is imbued with all the knowledge required to head the health team”.

The statement signed by its President and Secretary-General, Prosper Igboeli and Keneth Okoro respectively, maintained that, “in this critical period, we need a health minister; who will fast-track the current improvement in our health indices with improved immunization coverage, commendable reduction in the transmission of wild polio virus cases and mobilisation of resources to combat malaria and maternal mortality among other areas.

“Our members are therefore enjoined to remain calm as we believe that the acting president has due regard for medical doctors and will certainly carry them along”, it said.