Paul Ohia
4 February 2008
Lagos — Barring any last-minute change, the Federal Government is set to name Brig. Gen. Oluwole Rotimi (rtd), former military governor of the old Western State, as Nigeria's Ambassador to the United States.
THISDAY was also informed yesterday by sources at the Foreign Affairs Ministry that former Senate Leader, Dr. Dalhatu Tafida, will be named Nigeria's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, while the immediate past Minister of Foreign Affairs, Prof. Joy Ogwu, will be named Ambassador to the United Nations.
National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dr. Ahmadu Ali, who had hoped for a posting to the UK, has been pencilled down as High Commissioner to South Africa, although THISDAY learnt that he was still making frantic efforts to get his preference. But it was learnt that the UK was not very keen on the possibility of his posting to London.
Another controversial posting, according to THISDAY sources, was that of Senator Musiliu Obanikoro, the PDP governorship candidate in Lagos in the 2007 election. He was originally favoured for China, but owing to alleged staunch opposition from Chief Bode George, both of whom have not seen eye-to-eye since the party lost the governorship election in Lagos, Obanikoro is now being slated for Ghana.
President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua's former deputy when he was governor of Katsina State, Alhaji Garba Aminchi, will be named Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The ambassador-designate to US, Rotimi, who is 72-years-old, was military governor of the old Western State - comprising the present-day Ogun, Oyo, Ondo, Ekiti and Osun States - from 1971 to 1975. When Gowon was overthrown in 1975, he was one of the casualties as he was seen as a "Gowon loyalist" and promptly retired from the Army.
Rotimi was Quarter-Master General of the Army when the Civil War broke out in 1967 and a Garrison Commander. He was also the South-west Co-ordinator for the Yar'Adua Campaign in the presidential election.
Tafida, who will be going to London, is the immediate past Senate Leader. His ambition of ruling Kaduna State in the present dispensation was unsuccessful as he lost out in the party primaries.
Tafida was the personal physician to the Second Republic President, Alhaji Shehu Shagari. In 1992, Tafida famously defeated Gen. Yakubu Gowon in the presidential primaries of the now defunct National Republican Convention (NRC) in the Zaria ward under the Option A4 system.
Ogwu, who will now replace Aminu Wali at the UN, is a political scientist and former Director General of the Nigeria Institute for International Affairs (NIIA). The 61-year-old professor studied at Rutgers University in New Jersey. She has advised the United Nations on disarmament issues and published books advocating closer African ties to Latin America.
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