…ask acting president to be courageous, focussed
For writing a letter that sought to question his powers, Acting President Goodluck Jonathan has been told to sack the 12 ministers who purportedly wrote to him asking him to maintain the status quo.
In an interview with BusinessDay, Uche Onyeagocha, a former member of the House of Representatives, said the memo was unfortunate. He said the memo showed that it is those 12 ministers that were plotting to run the country by proxy. “It shows they are the principal actors who have been manipulating issues around the health of President Umaru Yar’Adua and the Federal Executive Council (FEC).
Onyeagocha said it is in the interest of Nigeria that the 12 ministers should be relieved of their appointments.
Osita Okechukwu, publicity secretary, Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP), said the acting president should have courage, focus and vision. He added that Jonathan needed to have political will and not just memo.
On his part, Buba Galadima, presidential campaign secretary of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) told BusinessDay that the 12 ministers are not wise men. “If they are wise men they should have known that constitutionally, an acting president can carry out all the duties of a substantive president, which include dissolution of FEC and constitution of a new executive council.
The FEC is reported to be divided to the extent that 12 ministers wrote a letter to Jonathan cautioning him against dissolving the cabinet or removing the service chiefs, arguing that Yar’Adua remains president till 2011.
The 12 ministers that signed the memo are Adamu Aliero, minister of the Federal Capital Territory; Rilwanu Lukman, minister of petroleum; Ufot Ekaette, minister of the Niger Delta and Shamsudeen Usman, minister of finance.
Others are Sam Egwu, minister of education; Abba Ruma, minister of agriculture and water resources, Babatunde Osotimehin, minister of health; Godwin Abbe, minister of defence; Ibrahim Lame, minister of police affairs; Demola Seriki, Shetimma Mustapha and Tanimu Yakubu, chief economic adviser to the president.
In writing the memo, the 12 ministers appeared to have taken a cue from the Governors’ Forum, which held a meeting with Jonathan a week ago and gave the acting president conditions which seek to reduce him to a lame duck. The governors had, among others, told Jonathan to forget about dissolution of the cabinet or appointment of new ministers.
The leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had followed up with a decision that the acting president should not consider running for the presidency in 2011.
Analysts who spoke with BusinessDay said the memo by the 12 ministers is part of the grand design by the cabal loyal to the First Lady to ensure that Jonathan’s hold on power is only tenuous.
Having exhausted their lies on the president’s health, analysts said the ministers are afraid that if they don’t move fast, power will slip through their hands. They said when Yar’Adua was still in Saudi Arabia, they used the Nigerian ambassador to the Saudi kingdom to confuse Nigerians on the true state of the president’s health. The ambassador, Abdullah Aminchi once told Nigerians that Yar’Adua had been discharged and was recuperating in another part of the hospital but two weeks after he was sneaked into the country, nobody has seen him, not even Jonathan, not even Dada Yar’Adua, the president’s mother.