Issa-Onilu: Delay in inaugurating ministers understandable | Tinubu tinkering with structure

Lanre Issa-Onilu, a former national director of publicity for the All Progressives Congress (APC), says ministers screened and confirmed by the senate will be inaugurated soon.

He added that the president is tinkering with the existing ministerial structure before inaugurating his cabinet.

On July 27, President Bola Tinubu sent a list of 28 ministerial nominees to the senate for screening and confirmation.

Six days later, the president forwarded an additional 19 names, to take the total number of ministerial nominees to 47. 

Festus Keyamo, former minister of state for labour and employment, was added to the list to take the number of nominees to 48.

On August 7, the senate confirmed 45 of the 48 ministerial nominees.

The nominations of Nasir el-Rufai, former governor of Kaduna; Stella Okotete (Delta) and Danladi Abubakar (Taraba) were withheld, pending security clearance.

Speaking on Sunrise Daily, a Channels Television programme on Wednesday, Issa-Onilu said there is an ongoing restructuring with the ministries, in order to lay a solid foundation for the ministers when they resume.

“What we should ask is we need to ensure that we lay a solid foundation even for the cabinet to come in and take off,” he said. 

“This is a new government and Asiwaju is a technocrat and if you bring someone to work with you, you must have a job description for the person.

“On Monday, they are going to be inaugurated. We have ministries, the president may have his ideas on how the ministries should work.

“He may want to tinker with the existing structure and he needs to prepare the bed before asking someone to come and lay on it.

“That is the only way to get things going.

“You don’t want to bring a minister in and say hold on you need to restructure the base. There is restructuring going on.

“You are going to hear ministries in terms of nomenclature you are not familiar with. And those are deliberate to ensure that you provide the necessary will to get things done fast enough.

“The bottom line is that there will be this exercise on Monday.”