Presidential aides panic over imminent changes

Posted by admin Goodluck Jonathan (2010-present), Presidency Monday, June 25th, 2012

FOLLOWING the swiftness with which President Goodluck Jonathan relieved both General Andrew Owoye Azazi and Dr Haliru Mohammed Bello as National Security Adviser and Defence Minister respectively, palpable fear has gripped ministers and presidential aides, just as it emerged that Jonathan’s action is not to appease “an otherwise aggrieved North.”

Unlike before, when he confided in a few of his aides, Jonathan neither discussed the fate of the duo with any of his closest aides nor betrayed emotions about the development before the sudden announcement which relieved the two principal security officials of their appointments.

The development, according to a source, has sent jitters among the ministers and top aides of the president, prompting two members of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) to cut short their official foreign trips.

The two ministers had travelled out of the country on official engagements a day to the sudden removal of both Azazi and Bello.

Curiously still, the source said, a ‘subtle lobby’ for the job of Bello has even commenced within the FEC. But he was quick to add that the president will be guided by “fairness and competence” while appointing the next Defence Minister.

“The removal of the two powerful members of cabinet is not anything new in government; you might be wondering how it was very easy for the president to relieve both Azazi and the defence minister.

“I can tell you that no one is untouchable, if at all, the only untouchable thing is the peace, unity and progress of this nation; so to think someone is too close to the president that he cannot be removed from office is far from it; only those who are performing do not have anything to worry about because from all indications, the president is poised to make more changes in the coming weeks.

“The only thing we should be looking at is whether or not the action will bring about peace and progress; whether it will check the insecurity menace and engender development in the country and all that is good for us in Nigeria as a whole.

“That is why when people make inferences such as the president trying to appease an otherwise aggrieved North, it is laughable because by that, we are accepting that the president is held to ransom by the North, which is wrong,” he told Nigerian Tribune by telephone.

Nigerian Tribune gathered that three members of the FEC are already lobbying to be redeployed to the Defence Ministry in an envisaged cabinet shake-up likely in August this year.

The three ministers are from the South-South, North-Central and South-West respectively.

While one of them has reportedly submitted a blueprint on how the Boko Haram insurgence could be curtailed, another is banking on the ‘need for spread’ in the appointment of certain positions.

The latter’s calculation, it was learnt, is based on the fact that both the National Security Adviser and Defence Minister are unlikely to come from the North.wp_posts