FEELERS from Aso Villa, Abuja yesterday indicated that President Goodluck Jonathan may not be in a hurry to constitute his much awaited cabinet.

The Guardian learnt that two critical factors are responsible. The first is the intense lobbying by the old cabinet members. The lobby to return was said to have succeeded to the extent that a lot of them were on their way back until early this week when some influential elders sighted a tentative cabinet list and counselled against its release.

It was gathered that two elders from the North were said to have counselled President Jonathan that the “list containing most of the members of the cabinet dissolved two weeks ago would not be able to assist in transforming Nigeria.”

The elders were said to have advised that “the president needed a legacy cabinet for his transformation agenda,” and that the list they sighted “contained the names of some of those that have been lobbying even in the news media to advertise themselves and such people are mere locusts in the system.”

The president was said to have been persuaded by the counsel of the elders and that perspective is said to have compounded the already complex process of selecting from the motley crowd of applicants.

The second factor, which has affected human resources management in the presidency, is a reported leak that some of the members of the old guard have paid a shadowy group said to be soliciting CVs and money from those who would like to return to the cabinet at all costs. The intelligence and security community in the presidency is said to be investigating those alleged to be involved in the unwholesome practice.

The Guardian inquiries revealed that most of the old ministers are quite upbeat that they will even return to their old portfolios, as many of them have not handed over some vital documents in their old ministries and departments.

Meanwhile, the well-orchestrated report about the clearance of 10 old ministers may not be real after all, as it was revealed last night that most of the names paraded in the media are “a product of media propaganda and blackmail by some members of the old set-up.”

It was learnt that the president has been dealing with the State Security Service (SSS) on this, but the list is not open to the media as the names being paraded may not be correct after all.

This is the way a concerned president’s man put it last night: “Recall that a section of the media had two weeks ago reported that the same intelligence service had cleared the same set of people they mentioned again today. How many times would the president send the same names to the same agency for check?

“I think the media should be ethical and careful in reporting the office of the president. A cabinet list cannot be so open like that. And mentioning non-existing names in the media will not produce the names like that magically.”

Besides, it was gathered that there has been a ‘cold war’ over the scramble to make the list of the president’s men inside the State House. An insider attributed this to the “failure of the presidency to withdraw security cover cards from most of the members of the old guard who have access to their old offices, although the president has not confirmed anyone after the appointment and re-appointment of the SGF and the NSA.”



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