By Adedapo Adesanya
There have been speculations lately that President Bola Tinubu would submit his ministerial list to the National Assembly for screening and approval, but his spokesman, Mr Dele Alake, has said his boss was yet to conclude on who will serve in his government.
Addressing reporters in Abuja on Thursday, Mr Alake stressed that, “There is no iota of truth in all of those things,” referring to the ministerial list.
“When the President is good and ready, you will be the first to know about his intentions,” he added.
Mr Tinubu, sworn in as president on May 29, has to submit his ministerial list to the Senate before July 29 as mandated by law.
The Nigerian constitution allows for the President to name his cabinet within 60 days, a change that was pushed for after former President Muhammadu Buhari took more than six months to name his cabinet.
Provisions to the amended law also say the President must pick a minister from each of the 36 states of the federation for equal representation.
Many rumours have been flying around that some of his loyalists, including Mr Nyesom Wike, Mr Ibikunle Amosun, Mr Nasir El Rufai, Mr Isa Bagudu, Mr Abubakar Kyari, and Mr Mike Okiro, among others, will be in the cabinet but the correspondence settles this as mere speculations.
Recently, Dr Muhammad Pate, who was supposed to resume as the CEO of Gavi (the Global Alliance for Vaccine and Immunization), also known as the Vaccine Alliance, on August 3, quit the position because he was needed back home.
This raised eyebrows that he could be heading to Abuja to take over as the next Nigeria’s minister of health under the new administration.
He was a junior minister, serving as Minister of State for Health under former President Goodluck Jonathan (2011-2015). He also served as Global Director for Health, Nutrition, and Population of the World Bank and Director of the Global Financing Facility at the World Bank between 2019 and 2021.
Modupe Gbadeyanka