President Bola Tinubu will reshuffle his cabinet, his spokesperson, Bayo Onanuga and the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Digital/New Media, Mr. O’Tega Ogra, have said.
The duo who addressed the media on Wednesday, did not, however, say when and those to be affected in the reshuffling of the cabinet.
The GUARDIAN reports that those to be likely affected include Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila who may be replaced with former Minister of Works, Babtunde Fashola.
Onanuga said the reshuffling of the cabinet.will be carried out after a report of the individual I assessed, adding that it would be based on the empirical evidence from performance reports the President has received in the past months.
According to The Guardian reports, the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management and others would be scrapped while others would be split.
The ministers likely to be removed according to the reports, are Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Bosun Tijani; Environment and Ecological Management, Ishahk Salaco; budget and economic Planning, Atiku bagudu; Industry, Trade and Investment, doris Anite; Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, among others.
He said although there is no stated time for the impending reshuffle, the president has “expressed his desire” to do it. Let me tell you, I don’t have any timeline. The President has expressed his desire to reshuffle his cabinet, and he will do it.
“I don’t know whether he’s going to do it before October 1, but he will surely do it. So that’s what I will say. He has not given us any timeline when he wants to do it, but he will do it. He has expressed his plan that he wants to do it.”
Mr. Ogra said the reports presented by the Special Adviser to the President on Policy Coordination, Hadiza Bala-Usman. Bala-Usman also heads the Central Delivery Coordination Unit and would determine who among the ministers would stay or leave the cabinet.
“The President had said when he was speaking at the retreat for the ministers that they were going to have periodic reviews and the decisions that are extracted from these reviews will be used to make that final decision.
“I know he has gotten a couple of reports, and as Mr. Onanuga said, when he is ready to do that, he will.”
Tinubu has been facing increasing pressure from within and outside his party, the All Progressives Congress, to sack underperforming ministers in his cabinet.
It would be recalled that ten months ago, warned against underperformance about 10 months ago, the cabinet remained largely intact, save for the suspension of Dr. Betta Edu, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation.
After a three-day retreat for cabinet members and presidential aides, Tinubu set up a Central Delivery Coordination Unit headed by Mrs. Hadiza Bala-Usman, that would measure the performance of ministers and other top government officials.
The president said their performance would determine who would leave or remain.
“If you are performing, there is nothing to fear. If you miss the objective, we’ll review it. If no performance, you leave us. No one is an island and the buck stops on my desk,” the President told participants.”
