Daily Independent (Lagos)
Adetutu Folasade-Koyi Senior Correspondent
9 October 2008
Abuja — Senate President, David Mark, and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole, met on Wednesday with President Umaru Yar'Adua on the much-awaited ministerial list that would signal a re-engineering of his Cabinet.
It was gathered that the President had earlier sought their input into the final list that is yet to be made public.
Presidency sources hinted last night that aside the leadership of both chambers of the National Assembly, the emergency meeting also included Vice President, Goodluck Jonathan, and Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Yayale Ahmed.
Yesterday's meeting, the source said, was convened to fine-tune the list.
The shape of the new Cabinet, it was gathered, will include technocrats expected to engineer better service delivery in tune with the President's Seven-point Agenda.
The President, the source hinted, was "Favourably disposed to poaching some Senators that would constitute the new Federal Executive Council (FEC).
However, indications emerged that in the final list to be presented to the Senate for clearance, the President may name two Senators and a member of the House of Representatives, whose nomination was ratified by a former governor.
There were speculations that a ministerial list had arrived the Senate on Tuesday night.
But Special Adviser to the President on National Assembly Matters, Senator Mohammed Aba Aji, dismissed the said list as mere speculation.
He said, "I have not seen the list. I don't have it. It's mere speculation."
Meanwhile, two weeks after securing the nod of the House of Representatives Speaker, Dimeji Bankole, for inauguration of the Joint Constitution Review Committee (JCRC), another spanner has been thrown in the works.
The proposed inauguration scheduled for 10 a.m. today has reportedly been postponed indefinitely.
Bankole is said to be responsible for the postponement.
He even barred his deputy, Usman Bayero Nafada, from attending any meeting with the Senate and Management of the National Assembly.
"The planning committee thought that with the decision of the Deputy Speaker to team up with plans for the inauguration, they could go ahead, but it appears the Speaker is insisting that the issue should be looked at again," said a National Assembly source who declined to be named on Wednesday.
Read comments. Write your own.
Copyright © 2008 Daily Independent. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
We hope that the 2 honorable members of the National Assembly will hold steadfast to preventing wastage in govt and duplication of bureaucracy. We dont need eight (8) additional Ministers of do-nothing if the 19 ministries we already have have nothing to do - they just need to be more efficient, creative and dedicated to the common good, that's all. Just creating ministries & paying salaries of some ignorant corrupt Ministers and their minions pretending to make Nigeria's decay go away when in fact they compound the decay, is not the right way to go. We want the National Assembly… [Read Full Text]