It has already been pencilled down in Nigeria's dubious political records as the Cabinet reshuffle with the longest gestation period, as one that created the most anxiety, and ultimately as one that has delivered the most controversial results.

Rumours that President Umaru Yar'adua will reshuffle his cabinet first made the rounds around March this year, when the administration had been in office for less than a year. Since the regime was already under fire for being very slow in delivering on its election promises, political and media speculators began to claim as the administration's first year anniversary in office approached that the President would undertake a reshuffle since, it was alleged, he had little say in the selection of most of the cabinet members last year.

It turned out that Nigerians were in for a long wait. On the eve of the first year anniversary, Yar'adua confirmed during a live television chat that he indeed intended to reshuffle the cabinet. More than four months later, when no reshuffle came, the president's spokesman said the delay was due to the Senate being on recess, so there was nowhere to send ministerial nominees' names to, supposedly.

The Senate resumed sitting not long after that, but it still took another three weeks before the president sacked 20 of the 39 ministers remaining in the cabinet. Yet, it took another month before he nominated new ones to fill in their place. Even though there were 23 vacancies to fill, Yar'adua nominated only 13 new ministers. Two weeks later, he nominated another 6, but between the night when the list was sent to the Senate President and the following morning when Senate sat, one name was dropped. Last week, he nominated another 3, then sent one more name to the Senate, for a total of 22 new ministers, of which 20 were confirmed, leaving 2 vacancies yet to be filled.

And what did Nigerians get after 6 long months of waiting for the president to do a cabinet reshuffle? Rather than calm the political atmosphere and lay "the solid ground" for speedy program implementation, the exercise has left in its wake eleven different controversies that the presidency would need another two years perhaps to come to grips with.

Controversy number one has to do with the age of some ministers. The new Petroleum Minister Dr. Rilwanu Lukman is 70; the new Defence Minister Alhaji Shettima Mustapha is 69, and Obong Ufot Ekaette, who is yet to get a portfolio, is 69. It is a needless controversy, I personally think, because a cabinet should be an amalgam of old and new, and since the president himself is relatively young, he needs some much older people to tell him why and how some things were done in the past. That's my own take on it, anyway.

A more potent controversy is the allegation that the new cabinet looks like a waste recycling plant. Rilwanu Lukman may be the best known Nigerian oilman internationally, having been OPEC president a record 8 times and OPEC secretary general for many years, but he first held this same post 23 years ago. To some critics, it looks like time stood still in the Nigerian oil industry.

Malam Rilwanu apart, Yar'adua also "recycled" Obong Ekaette, a long-time Federal permanent secretary who served as Secretary to the Government of the Federation [SGF] throughout the Obasanjo era. Many people are grumbling that it looks like there is no one else in Akwa Ibom. Then there are the former two-term governors. Alhaji Muhammadu Adamu Aliero, Dr. Sam Egwu and Chief Achike Udenwa each governed his state for 8 years, and has now bounced back as a minister. Whatever happened to the PDP national caucus decision of last year, that no former governor should be nominated for minister? Since Yar'adua has reversed this stance, then the floodgate is now open for many former PDP governors waiting in the wings, including Alhaji Ahmed Makarfi, Mr. James Ibori, Dr. Peter Odili, Mr. Donald Duke, Alhaji Abdullahi Adamu, Alhaji Ahmadu Muazu, Mr. Lucky Igbinedion, Engineer Abdulkadir Kure, Obong Victor Attah, Senator George Akume, Alhaji Rabiu Kwankwaso, Alhaji Ibrahim Saminu Turaki, and a few others.

The third controversy has to do with the balance, or lack of it, between technocracy and pure politics. There were high expectations that the main objective of Yar'adua's cabinet reshuffle was to bring in high-profile technocrats in order to drive the regime forward. For the most part, he did none of that. At least, old man Obasanjo went out to the World Bank, IMF and other far-flung places looking for [Western brain-washed] technocrats. Alhaji Umaru did not even conduct a thorough search of Nigerian universities, research centres and banks for solid technocracy. Instead, he mostly relied on nominations from state PDP chapters. What this usually comes down to is that a local party heavyweight would seize the nomination either for himself or for a crony, with little regard for technical competence.

In some cases, controversy trailed some ministerial nominations that were allegedly done without much intraparty consultation. Kogi's nominee Hyacinth Abbah's Senate confirmation was stalled for that reason. The Kebbi State ANPP said no one consulted it before new Women Affairs Minister Salamatu Sulaiman was nominated. Alhaji Abdurrahman Adamu of Adamawa ANPP was also nominated largely by the national leadership, and some Zamfara PDP men said Alhaji Ikra Bilbis was nominated by a Katsina businessman, not by them. That's the allegation.

More controversy followed during the Senate screening process when some nominees engaged in solid buck-passing. Former SGF Ekaette, for example, stabbed old man Obasanjo in the back and said he signed and implemented the Green Tree agreement to handover Bakassi without Senate ratification. Former Ebonyi State governor Sam Egwu washed the PDP's dirty linen in public with regards to last year's governorship primaries, as did former Imo State governor Udenwa, who said Obasanjo and Dr. Amadu Ali were responsible for the party's loss of the Imo governorship. Then there was the Senate's controversial policy of "take a bow" for former legislators. Beyond the screening stage, Minister of State for Education Hajia Aisha Dukku created further controversy at the handing-over stage by saying her former boss, Education Minister Aja-Nwachukwu, was sacked for incompetence. To quote my former vice principal, "Who told you that?"

When it came time for Yar'adua to assign portfolios to new ministers and seize the chance to reassign some old ones, he failed to reassign two ministers who, by wide public acclaim, deserve to be moved. They include Attorney General Mike Aondoaaka and Foreign Minister Ojo Madueke, under whose watch the country's foreign policy has gone to sleep.

However, Yar'adua caused another controversy by demoting some ministers, some of them with high public regard. Finance Minister Dr. Shamsudeen Usman was moved to National Planning, a severe demotion in Nigerian eyes, while Mrs Diezani Allison-Madueke, who once headed the colossal Ministry of Transportation, was moved to the sleepy Mines and Steel portfolio, long after Nigeria's coal and tin mines have fallen into disuse and its steel rolling mills have fallen silent. Mrs. Grace Ekpiwhre and Chief Godsay Orubebe, who were full ministers in the old line up, now became Ministers of State, while some Ministers of State who probably deserved a raise, namely Mr. Remi Babalola and Mr. Odein Ajumugobia, never got one.

One of the biggest controversies in the cabinet reshuffle's wake is the assignment of some very square technocratic pegs into very round ministerial holes. The most scandalous was Professor Dora Akunyili's appointment as Information and Communications Minister. Maybe Malam Umaru Yar'adua was thinking that, after all, as NAFDAC boss for the last 6 years, she was in the papers nearly every day, so let's throw her at them. And not just Akunyili; Sani Ndanusa of Niger, an experienced water engineer, was assigned to Sports. Thus, Yar'adua upheld Obasanjo's very controversial policy of assigning a Federal ministry to a particular state, irrespective of the minister's qualifications and experience. Yet another minister who will be groping around for orientation is the former Culture and National Orientation Minister Tokunbo Kayode, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, now posted to Labour.

The mother of all controversies however promises to be the lack of regional balancing in ministerial assignments, a most potent issue in Nigerian politics. As it is, three North-western states of Kaduna, Kano and Kebbi got two ministers each. More seriously, ministers from the North got [in Nigerian terms] the juiciest ministries of Petroleum, Defence, FCT, Works, Agriculture and Transport, and possibly Finance too, if as speculated Dr. Mansur Mukhtar gets the portfolio. Big Southern brickbats will soon be flying Yar'adua's way like the Iraqi reporter's shoe at President George Bush's face.

Some people are now alleging that members of the President's inner family dabbled into the cabinet selection process, potentially a breach of the Oath of Office. The final controversy is the question that many Nigerians are now asking: is the new Cabinet better than the old one? Is this all we can get after 9 full months of anxious dilly-dallying?