A few surprises in Tinubu’s cabinet By Etim Etim
Nigerians are in for a few surprises as President Bola Tinubu unveils his new cabinet in a few days. Both in composition, size and structure, the next federal executive council would far different from what we’ve always known.
A Lagos banker and politician, Senator Abiru will likely emerge as the new finance minister when President Tinubu unveils his cabinet in a few days. The president has only 20 days left out of the 60 allowed by the constitution for him to send his list of ministers to the senate.
Senator Abiru currently represents Lagos East senatorial district in the senate. Born March 25, 1964, he was also the group managing director & chief executive of Polaris Bank. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Lagos State University and is a fellow of ICAN.
In addition, Senator Abiru had also attended several courses at Harvard Business School and Lagos Business School. He was executive director at First Bank (2013-2016) and commissioner of finance in Lagos state (2011-2013) under the Babatunde Fashola administration. He resigned
as the bank CEO in 2020 to run for the senatorial seat.
Contrary to expectations, the new cabinet would be a large one, consisting of 42 ministers and 20 special advisers. But unlike in the past administrations, there will be no minister of state in the Tinubu government.
Special advisers will contribute to discussions of FEC, unlike in the past when they were only silent participants.
Some large ministries would be broken into two and some into three to create enough portfolios for the cabinet members.
Those to be split include works & housing; agriculture & rural development; humanitarian affairs, disaster management & social development; sports & youth; health; education; transport; finance, national planning & budget; petroleum and a few others.
Dele Alake, currently special adviser on special duties, communication & strategy will move up as minister of public communication, a new name for the information ministry. He will also double as the presidential spokesman and may continue to work out of the presidential villa or split his time between the villa and the ministry at Radio House. So far, Alake is one of the closest persons to the president and a very influential member of the administration.
In a way, renaming the information ministry and combining it with the function of the presidential spokesperson is akin to what obtains in many advanced democracies where the press secretary is the only official responsible for the public communication of the government.
