As Nigeria’s Senate on Monday confirmed 45 ministerial nominees out of 48 names sent for confirmation by President Bola Tinubu, the candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the February presidential election, Barr Adewole Adebayo, has said the cabinet is a mirror that reflects the face of the president.
While commending the president on his choice of ministers, he urges Nigerians to trust the president’s prerogative to select his team.
According to him, Tinubu knew what he considered in the selection of his appointees who would drive his renewed hope agenda from the beginning and end of his administration.
He stated that the Ministers are like cattle while the president is the herdsman who directs them to his desired destination.
He added, “The ministers are like cattle, the president is like the herdsman, he has to direct them to where they need to go because every authority is vested in him because he is the one to assign them to offices. So, if he puts a square peg in a round hole, then he is already in trouble. If he puts a square peg in a square hole, it is okay.
It is easy to comply with the law in this kind of case. Why would you want to violate it? The quality of who he wants to choose is his choice, provided that they must be adults. They must be persons who are qualified to be elected to the national assembly. It is his choice because he alone knows how he wants to lay his bed, and he would lie on it. That is why the election had consequences.
The cabinet should be a mirror that reflects the face of the president. The cabinet members he has chosen look very much like him because many of them are his foot soldiers, so it is his right. The advantage you have of being the president is the fact that you get to choose ministers, and those of us who lose elections get to talk on TV about it. That is all we can do.
It is his choice to look at his renewed hope that he wrote and wants to implement, look at the oath of office he is taking, look at the constitution of Nigeria, and then look at the circumstances going on in Nigeria and realised that he had to get people whom he thinks are the best for him from every state of the federation.
So, I don’t see why we worry too much about what he does because very soon, the results will show. He would start to work, and the ministers would start to work, and it is when that happens that Nigerians can know whether he has made the right choice or not.”
He, however, commended the president for the choice of ministers he had made, adding, “Scanning through the people he has chosen, they look to me as meeting the requirements, and I have seen some even remarkable people there that even I would have chosen if I were president.
People like Professor Pate, who is a national asset, and nobody can deny that. He is not that partisan, and he is willing to serve in any capacity. I know Musawa very well, very energetic, smart lady.
People like Lateef Fagbemi are very sound lawyers. The president will know why he brought him there because he is a very conservative person. Dele Alake is a like carbon copy of the president himself. He knows what he is doing. We would only know when they started to act.”
