By NewsDirect
President Muhammadu Buhari is set to make major changes in his cabinet as the President has decided to favour politicians who assisted him during presidential election campaign, a source told Nigerian NewsDirect.
The President who returned to the country last Friday after 49 days of medical vacation in London is under intense pressure from his party to compensate loyal party members who were victimized, harassed and spent heavily during the presidential election but had been left in the cold since the president assumed power while only few cliques had been enjoying “dividends of the victory”.
Findings by our correspondent revealed that the President might yield to the pressure by some powerful politicians in the party to compensate them for their roles in the last election.
Leading this campaign is the wife of the President, Mrs Aishat Buhari who had warned that her support for her husband for 2019 election rested on her husband’s readiness to shake up his government.
Aisha Buhari who spoke in a controversial interview with BBC Hausa service claimed then that Buhari’s government was hijacked by a cabal who is “behind presidential appointments”.
The First Lady had lamented that most of the officials of the government were known to the President and the first family, adding that they were usurpers who did nothing to help All Progressives Congress (APC) struggle in 2015.
Mrs Aisha Buhari posited “the President does not know 45 out of 50, for example, of the people he appointed and I don’t know them either despite being his wife for 27 years.”
She further revealed “some people are sitting down at their homes folding their arms only for them to be called to come and head an agency or ministerial position”.
Mrs Buhari claimed that “some of them don’t even have voter cards, and those who made sacrifice have been reduced to nothing and certainly not happy with the way things are going ’.
“None of the technocrats brought into the government has been spectacular so far, therefore it does not make real sense for all those who laboured and toiled to install the President to be left in the cold while those who did nothing and will do nothing to return the president to power in case he decides to recontest in 2019”
Furthermore, there is growing disquiet in the party about the President’s attitude to the welfare of the party members especially those who stood stoutly by him during the election” the source told Nigerian NewsDirect.
Nigerian NewsDirect learnt that the three major political blocks that formed APC will be considered in the cabinet reshuffle. They are, the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) led by Buhari , Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) led by Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and New PDP led by Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.
In the meantime, credible sources in the presidency told Nigerian NewsDirect that speculation that the President would sack his Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari and the Secretary to the Federal Government, Babachir Lawal is untrue.
“The President is happy with role played by the two men while he was away. They made the system to be working and Prof Yemi Osinbajo who acted while the President was away did not have any confrontation with the two, they represented the President well and managed the situation well alongside Osinbajo”
“We know those peddling the rumour but it’s too petty for the President to consider” Nigerian NewsDirect learnt.
On the removal of one of the key ministries of Power, Housing and Works from portfolio of Mr Raji Fashola, a close aide of Fashola told Nigerian NewsDirect that we know those sponsoring the news, its nothing new, they have been saying that since October last year but we are not bothered. When the President returned, he praised Osinbajo, he praised Fashola as well.
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