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Ministerial Nominees’ List Is Not ‘Change’ Nigerians Voted For – Odenigbo

A member of the PDP National Publicity Team, Colet Odenigbo, has expressed disappointment in the ministerial nominees list sent to the Senate by President Muhammadu … Continue reading Ministerial Nominees’ List Is Not ‘Change’ Nigerians Voted For – Odenigbo


NomineesA member of the PDP National Publicity Team, Colet Odenigbo, has expressed disappointment in the ministerial nominees list sent to the Senate by President Muhammadu Buhari.

“I have issues with both the timing and the capacity of the nominees of Mr President,” he said on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Thursday.

He based his view on the time taken by the President to present the list and wondered why the list ended up including people who had been in governance in the past.

“I’m sure you know that in-between this delay, there have been several constitutional violations where the country’s business is being carried along without the required constitutional requirements.

“Having taken all these length of time for the administration to present us with the list of these people that we all know, list of people that have questions hanging around them, list of people whose political DNAs are all over the country, to say that the Nigerian people are being taken for a ride will be an understatement,” he stated.

Odenigbo said that he could only identify three persons among the nominees who have the capacity and integrity and whose antecedents speak for but other than that, “it’s just a recycling of the old folks and it doesn’t give hope for the young and upcoming Nigerians that at some point they are going to be part of the administration of this country”.

Old Way of Doing Things

Mr Odenigbo was, however, reminded that his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) could be considered guilty of the recycling process he complained about, looking at the party’s antecedent, but he disagreed on the grounds that Nigeria should not be looking at the old way of doing things.

“The President came on board on the mantra of change (but) to continue his administration with the business as usual, I don’t think that that was the basis on which Nigerian citizens gave him a mandate of change.

“The essence of growing democracy is that we continue to refine the process by which we do the people’s business.

“If there is anything that the past administration did wrong or has done wrong, the optimism of Nigerians is to look forward to a new way of doing things so that they can say ‘yes this change is coming finally’.

“But when you look at that list and when you look at what is going on, it doesn’t show any seriousness in the claims of fighting corruption. I don’t think it sets a good precedence for the young Nigerians who went out in droves claiming that they want change in this country.”

Results

The PDP man remained pessimistic about the capacity of a majority of the ministerial nominees to produce results as suggested by many Nigerians.

He maintained that their antecedents have left him with less to expect, although with few exceptions, singling out the current Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu.

“I don’t think anybody would argue about his competence and capacity to run that agency because he has the track record to do that, having being exposed to multinational corporations where he must have imbibed some organisational culture that will be favourable to the organisation of the NNPC.

“But when you have other names which you and I know is nothing short of political patronage, under the disguise of change, it’s nothing but short-changing Nigerians.”

He stated that the President should have shown enough courage to select his cabinet putting competence and integrity ahead of political patronage.

“It takes a lot, yes some people worked for the campaign but that doesn’t mean that you have to choose those individuals that worked for your campaign. We need to look for Nigerians that are capable – Nigerians that will spend more time focussing on the business of Nigeria rather than the issues of allegations hanging over their heads.”

Mr Odenigbo maintained that President Buhari needs to “bring in some new blood” to his cabinet to ensure real change.