Several civil society groups, columnists and
opposition senators had opposed Mr. Obanikoro’s
nomination on account of the former minister’s
involvement in an illegal scheme to use the military
to rig last year’s governorship election in Ekiti State.
SaharaReporters had obtained an audiotape where
Mr. Obanikoro and several PDP politicians ordered
Brigadier General A.A. Momoh to have his troops
detain supporters of then incumbent Governor
Kayode Fayemi in order to boost the electoral
prospects of the PDP’s governorship candidate, Ayo
Fayose.
President Goodluck Jonathan today assigned
ministerial nominees to their portfolios, dumping
Musiliu Obanikoro, the shady former minister of
state for Defense, in an insignificant cabinet post.
Mr. Jonathan unveiled the ministerial deployments
at a meeting of the Federal Executive Council today
in Abuja. Mr. Obanikoro was named as the Minister
of State for Foreign Affairs II, a position starkly
lower in prestige than his former position as
minister of state for defense. Several civil society
groups, columnists and opposition senators had
opposed Mr. Obanikoro’s nomination on account of
the former minister’s involvement in an illegal
scheme to use the military to rig last year’s
governorship election in Ekiti State.
SaharaReporters had obtained an audiotape where
Mr. Obanikoro and several PDP politicians ordered
Brigadier General A.A. Momoh to have his troops
detain supporters of then incumbent Governor
Kayode Fayemi in order to boost the electoral
prospects of the PDP’s governorship candidate, Ayo
Fayose.
Despite the widespread opposition to Mr.
Obanikoro’s confirmation, Senate President David
Mark wangled a senatorial clearance for the former
junior rank Defense minister. Mr. Obanikoro’s
senate clearance was stalled twice, before Mr.
Mark used underhanded tactics to get him
approved. Most opposition senators walked out of
the chambers to protest what one of them termed
“the Senate president’s act of bad faith.”
A source at the Presidency told SaharaReporters
this morning that President Jonathan was so
shaken by the widespread opposition to his
nomination of Mr. Obanikoro as a minister that he
decided to assign the controversial former minister
to one of the most obscure cabinet posts. “Even
PDP stakeholders in Lagos and the southwest were
against Ambassador Musiliu Obanikoro,” the source
disclosed.
Mr. Obanikoro, who once served as Nigeria’s
ambassador to Ghana, had resigned from President
Jonathan’s cabinet to seek the ticket as the PDP’s
governorship candidate in Lagos. After losing out to
Jimi Agbaje, the former minister of state for
Defense pressured Mr. Jonathan to re-nominate
him to the cabinet, threatening that he would neither
work for the president’s re-election nor support Mr.
Agbaje’s governorship aspiration if he was not
“accommodated with a ministerial appointment,”
according to a source at the Presidency.
During his stint as junior Defense minister, Mr.
Obanikoro had access to a full range of military
arsenal, including naval choppers that ferried him
around Lagos whenever he visited the state. His
former position afforded him the power to
commandeer a military general and troops to help
rig the governorship election in Ekiti State in June
2014.
Mr. Obanikoro’s humiliating cabinet post is
equivalent to an ambassadorship, a source within
the cabinet disclosed. Largely a sinecure, the new
post is seen as Mr. Jonathan’s delicate balancing
act, keeping Mr. Obanikoro quiet without incurring
any huge political cost that would have been
triggered by the reappointment of the former
minister to the Defense portfolio or any prominent
cabinet post.
In today’s cabinet assignments, retired Colonel
Augustine Akobundu was made the new minister of
State for Defense.
Sahara reporters
Comments
Post a Comment