When President Muhammadu Buhari inaugurates his cabinet on Wednesday, a
group of people will stand out. They are the Alumni of the prestigious
Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria in Kaduna State.
They attended the
institution at different times, but fate and Buhari has brought them
together as members of the Federal Executive Council, who will execute
the Next Level Agenda of the Daura, Katsina State born retired general.
The
journey to Wednesday’s historical date started on July 23, 2019, when,
Buhari forwarded a list of 43 nominees to the Senate for screening and
confirmation for appointment as ministers. Not willing to delay the
screening of the long awaited nominees, the Senate immediately resolved
to suspend its annual break for one week, in order to treat the list
with dispatch before going on the long holiday.
However, beyond
the peripheral glimpse on the ministerial list as forwarded to the apex
legislative chamber for screening, Sunday Telegraph decided to take a
deeper and critical look at other indices and compositions of the list.
Doing this, it was observed that out of the 43 nominees, nine were
nominated from the North West geopolitical zone while President Buhari
allotted seven ministerial slots to the North East.
Also, the
North Central, South West and South South all got equal ministerial
slots of seven while only the South East geopolitical zone got the least
slot of six appointees.
It is also important to note that while
the North West has seven states and the largest among the six
geopolitical zones of the country, the other four have six states, and
only the South East has five states, a situation that has been a point
of agitation for the disadvantaged region, as it seeks to get one
additional state for a balance. Meanwhile, one striking issue of
interest in the configuration of Buhari’s next cabinet ministers is that
13 of the 43 ministers-designate, representing 30.23 per cent are
alumni of the reputed ABU.
A statistical breakdown of the number
shows that four of the ministers-designate, representing 9.3 per cent
who are products of the ABU, are from the Boko Haram insurgency stricken
North East zone of the country.
The appointees from this zone
are Mohammed Musa Bello (Adamawa), who is the immediate past Minister of
the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, and Adamu Adamu (Bauchi), who is
the immediate past Minister of Education.
Other ABU Alumi in the
list of the recently confirmed ministerial appointees are Ambassador
Maryam Katagum (Bauchi) and Mustapha Baba Shehuri, who hails from Borno
State. Ambassador Katagum obtained a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in English
and a Graduate Certificate in Education at the Ahmadu Bello University,
Zaria in 1976 before she proceeded to the United States of America for
further studies.
Six out of the 13 ABU graduate
ministers-designate, representing 13.95 per cent are of the North West
extraction namely: Engr. Sulaiman Adamu (Jigawa) and Zainab Shumsuna
(Kaduna), who is the immediate past Minister of Finance. Others are Sabo
Nanono (Kano), Maj. Gen. Bashir Salihi (Kano), Muhammadu Maigairi
Dingyadi (Sokoto), and Sa’adiya (Zamfara).
Further more, two of
the ministers-designate representing 4.65 per cent of the total nominees
are from the North Central states of Kogi and Niger in the persons of
Ramatu Tijani and Ambassador Zubairu Dada, respectively. Only two of the
appointees are from the Southern part of Nigeria.
One is a
former Group General Manager, Crude Oil Marketing Division of the
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Goddy Jedy-Agba, from
Cross Rivers State, and Sunday Akin Dare, from Oyo State. It is also
important to note that there are a total of seven women among the 43
ministerial nominations made by President Buhari, and out of them, seven
are products of the Ahmadu Bello University.
The three female
appointees are Ambassador Maryam Katagum, Ramatu Tijani and Sa’adiya
Umar Farouk. They were among the senators who were asked by the Senate
to “take a bow and go” during the just concluded ministerial screening.
Source:- Newtelegraphonline
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