The list of ministers who will launch the Goodluck Jonathan’s phase of this government is being prepared amidst lobbying, realignments and jostling by several interest groups. Already, the political terrain is abuzz with names of ministers that will likely return to the new cabinet. Those suggested include former Minister of Foreign Affairs Ojo Madueke, former Minister of Information Dora Akunyili, former Minister of Justice Adetokunbo Kayode and former Minister of State for Petroleum, Odein Ajumogobia, among others.
Apart from those being touted as likely returnees to the cabinet, the Acting President is reported to have asked some state governors to submit nominations for consideration, in line with the usual practice since the regime of former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
But the nomination exercise said to have roused sleeping dogs within the PDP. Some state governors are already said to be angry over the dissolution, something many of them believe was at the prompting of intense pressure that was brought to bear on Jonathan by the new set of people around him. Majority of the ministers were nominees of the state governors. Though some governors were said to have been told to submit nominations, a source close to the presidency told our correspondent that not all the nominations from the state governors will sail through to the new cabinet.
In states like Katsina, Bauchi, Zamafara, Imo and even the Acting President’s state of Bayelsa, the PDP has been a battlefield for powerful factions of the party who are working to outdo one another in 2011. At the heat of the power play at the presidency, some of the factions were known to have aligned with either the ‘pro Jonathan’ or the ‘pro Yar’adua group, which is why observers believe that the same game will certainly reflect in the decision concerning whose nominee makes it to the new FEC.
The dissolution of the cabinet has been widely interpreted as a signpost of Jonathan’s desire to consolidate his hold on power. Though Chairman of the ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had publicly asked Jonathan to forget the presidency in 2011, many analysts have expressed doubt that the Acting President will let go the contest for PDP’s ticket in view of the advantages bestowed on him by the party’s constitution to have his way.
In the time of former President Olusegiun Obasanjo, Jonathn’s benefactor in the present arrangement, no National Working Committee of the PDP had completed its term. And by the time he completed his two terms of eight years, he had worked with four national chairmen – Chief Solomon Lar, Chief Barnabas Gemade, Chief Audu Ogbe and Ahmadu Ali.
Political pundits have also suggested that the Acting President may soon descend on the party’s leadership, which is believed to have been on the side of Yar’adua, or better put, had won cold shoulders towards Jonathan’s assumption of power. But the question is whether the atmosphere and the time which Jonathan has to do all these before elections are right and will produce the result intended by his counsellors.
In the following states, among others, nominations for the new cabinet will almost certainly deepen the cracks within the PDP:
Zamfara
Here, the nomination process for a new minister will certainly deepen existing cracks among two or three factions. Presently, the state governor Mamuda Aliyu Shinkafi and the National Security Adviser General Aliyu Gusau are rightly positioned to exercise a balance of terror in PDP’s political space in the state. PDP faithful loyal to the two men have been in contention over the leadership of the party in the state.
Governor Mamuda Aliyu Shinkafi had only defected to the PDP a year ago but has succeeded in throwing out the executive committee of the PDP he met on ground and who that lured him into the party. The former executive led by Alhaji Namadi Ango was believed to have been installed by General Gusau before Governor Mamuda’s entry into the PDP. Some supporters of the former executive have since gone to court to challenge what they call ‘illegal dissolution’ of the state exco, which they claimed had been elected to serve a constitutional term of four years.
Now, many observers believe that the ministerial nomination will set the two camps on a bitter path. The two men will certainly compete in the game to field the next minister. Apart from being the NSA, Gusau is said to enjoy tremendous respect of the Acting President and those who form the kitchen cabinet of Jonathan. It is therefore doubtful if the NSA will take lightly the opportunity to produce a minister from his camp to balance the political influence at home.
But nothing will hurt the governor more than a failure to have an upper hand in nominating the next minister from Zamfara State. When he was in the ANPP, he lost to his predecessor and estranged mentor, Ahmed Sani Yarima, the prerogative of deciding who represents the state in President Yar’adua’s Government of National Unity (GNU), and that partly kick-started the crisis that made him to quit the party.
Bauchi
The political space in Bauchi State is not too different from the one in Zamfara where two contending forces that will move to exert their influence in selecting the next minister exist. On one side is Governor Isa Yuguda, son-in-law to President Umaru Yar’adua, who is believed to have been one of those who fought covertly or overtly, or both, to keep Yar’adua’s presidency alive. On the other side is the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Mahmoud Yayale Ahmed, who was lately seen to have identified with the so called ‘pro Jonathan’ group in the fight for the control of the presidency.
Back in Bauchi State, the PDP has been divided along some lines, pitching Governor Yuguda and the SFG in opposing camps. When Yuguda started his move to return to the PDP, not many politicians he left in the PDP in the run up to the 2007 elections were agitated by the fear of losing some relevance in the scheme of things. Under Yar’adua’s presidency, Yuguda moved with a combined advantage of state power and matrimonial affiliation that put no question mark to his upper hand in political decisions concerning the state. But with the roles played by the two men concerning Jonathan’s presidency, many are eager to see who will get the upper hand in deciding the nomination from the state.
Another politician factored into the Bauchi political equation is the former Deputy Governor in the regime of Ahmed Mua’azu, Alhaji Abdulaziz Mahmood. He is known to be opposed to Governor Yuguda and has a close relationship with the Acting President, which was said to have developed when the duo were deputy governors.
Katsina
The home state of President Umaru Yar’adua, Katsina, has been a battleground for some PDP big shots that appear to be positioning themselves for 2011. At one end is the governor and his allies while on the other are top members of the dissolved cabinet such as former Agric Minister Abbah Ruma and former Economic Adviser to the president, Tanimu Yakubu. Those at the political front in Katsina call them ‘Abuja politicians’, but in wider circles, the men were known as members of Yar’adu’s inner cabinet, or what Professor Dora Akunyili, former Information Minister, would prefer to refer to as ‘the cabal’ around Yar’adua when the going got tough in search for a Jonathan’s presidency.
Ruma has been dropped and it is not likely that he makes it to the new cabinet, in which case a new minister will have to be appointed from Katsina. If that becomes the case then a new vista of politicking concerning his replacement will definitely open between the state governor and the elements who claim to be close to President Yar’adua. Already, some elements of the PDP in Katsina such as former Speaker of the House of Representatives Alhaji Aminu Bello Masari who are known to be at daggers-drawn with President Yar’adua are being courted by the new administration.
Bayelsa
The division that characterises the PDP in many states is also rooted in Bayelsa, the home state of Acting President Goodluck Jonathan. The PDP followership is divided into loyalists of the Acting President and those of the governor, Timipre Silva. But the case of Governor Silva can as well be considered as closed since the man to hire the ministers is his political foe, the Acting President himself. Knowing his problem with the Acting President that is certain to take a toll on him in the primaries of the PDP, Silva is said to have expressed a soft spot for ailing President Yar’adua.
Many other states like Imo and Kaduna will not be left behind in the raging political storm stirred by the decision of the Acting President to appoint a new cabinet even as it is becoming more uncertain who will weather the tempest.
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