President Muhammadu Buhari’s decision to go
outside the permutations of political enthusiasts to
appoint key officers of the administration was a
fallout of the endless squabbling and the fait
accompli that was forced on him by political
opponents of his favourite for the post, former
Governor Tunde Fashola.
The disappointments by political stakeholders from the south nonetheless, the appointment of northern minorities and Christians into key positions by the Buhari administration is meanwhile receiving mixed welcome from the Northern minorities.
Buhari had on Thursday sidestepped the favourite
nominees including Fashola and former Governor
Ogbonnonya Onu to appoint Engr. David Lawal, the
national vice-chairman, Northeast, of the All
Progressives Congress, APC as the Secretary to
the Government of the Federation, SGF.
Also appointed was the former newspaper editor
and banker, Alhaji Abba Kyari as chief of staff while
the taciturn disciplinarian and erstwhile chief of
staff to Buhari, Col. Hammed Ali (retd.) was
appointed as the Comptroller General of the
Nigerian Customs Service.
Fashola had been widely touted for the position
largely on account of his organisational acumen
and strides in Lagos as governor. However, local
political opponents of the former governor,
especially within the All Progressives Congress,
APC were said to have been largely uncomfortable
with his possible emergence as chief of staff, a
position they believed would have given him the
impetus to dominate the Southwest APC political
leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Though Tinubu has recently denied his personal
involvement in the campaign against Fashola that
was mounted through publication of allegedly
inflated contract awards by his administration, his
close associates were, however, known to have
deployed other political schemes to knock Fashola
out of contention for either the position of SGF or
Chief of Staff.
The ultimate weapon that was used in neutralising
Fashola, Saturday Vanguard learnt, was the
nomination of a former commissioner in the
Fashola administration as the Deputy Chief of Staff
to the president but delegated to the office of the
vice-president.
Mr. Ade Ipaye, SAN who worked as attorney
general and commissioner for justice in the second term of the Fashola administration, it was gathered has been pencilled down as the deputy chief of staff to the president with responsibilities of working under the vice-president, Prof. Yemi
Osinbajo, SAN.
The deployment of Mr. Ipaye, it was gathered,
became the political masterstroke that was used in
knocking Fashola out of reckoning in the stiff race
for Chief of Staff.
Sources privy to the development disclosed that
those against Fashola took advantage of the fact
that Buhari is bent on operating a single
presidency with only one chief of staff who would
oversee the president’s affairs and a deputy chief
of staff who would oversee the duties of the vice-
president. Given that Ipaye was projected to work
with Osinbajo, it became untenable to have another Lagosian in the person of Fashola work as chief of staff.
“You cannot have two of them from Lagos working
as chief of staff and deputy chief of staff in the
same government,” a source privy to the
development disclosed.
Ipaye’s choice as deputy chief of staff was also
logical given that before his appointment into the
Fashola cabinet he had worked as special assistant to Osinbajo when the latter was commissioner for justice and attorney general in Lagos State in the Tinubu administration.
Meanwhile, despite mutterings in some sections of
the country about perceived geopolitical
lopsidedness in the appointments so far made by
the president, the appointment of Mr. Lawal as SGF
was at the weekend being welcomed as another
elixir by Buhari to soothe the long cries of
marginalisation by northern minorities.
Mr. Lawal from Adamawa State, a pastor and
missionary, became the first Christian from the
North to get the high profile position of SGF. His
appointment sources said flowed from the comfort
and confidence the president has in him arising
from his long association with the president.
Lawal was a leading supporter of Buhari ahead of
the presidential primaries and helped to ensure
that Buhari defeated Atiku Abubakar in the APC
presidential primaries in Adamawa State and the
Northeast.
Besides his integrity and political capacity that
recommended him for the office, Mr. Lawal’s
emergence as SGF was at the weekend also
receiving critical acclaim by northern minorities on
account of the long history of marginalisation of
Northern Christians into sensitive positions in the
recent past.
However, one northern leader was not impressed
yesterday saying that it was a move to lure the
disenchanted northern minorities back to the
agenda of one north.
“This is just a move to woo the northern minorities
back to the Hausa Fulani agenda before they will
again humiliate us after they have achieved their
purpose,” the northern leader a former member of
the National Assembly and presidential aide told
Saturday Vanguard yesterday.
Some have alleged that it was part of the scheme
to reintegrate the northern minorities into the One
North philosophy that the Northwest through
Governor Aminu Tambuwal gave rabid support for
the emergence of Yakubu Dogara as speaker of the
House of Representatives.
Apparently alluding to a deliberate effort to rebuild
the relationship between the northern minorities
and the Hausa Fulani when he received a
delegation of Dogara’s Sayawa Community of
Bogoro and Tafawa Balewa Local Government
Areas of Bauchi State who paid him a thank you
visit in appreciation of his role in the installation of
Dogara as speaker,
Tambuwal had said:
“The relationship between people of Sokoto and
Bauchi States was amplified in the First Republic
when the first Prime Minister of Nigeria, Abubakar
Tafawa Balewa worked in harmony with the leader
of his party and then Premier of Northern Nigeria,
Sir Ahamdu Bello.”
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