By Cross Udo, Abuja
President Bola Tinubu will soon show the exit door to nonperforming ministers, the Presidency yesterday said.
The cabinet reshuffle will be based on empirical evidence from performance reports the President has received in the past months.
This was disclosed by the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, and the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Digital/New Media, Mr O’Tega Ogra, during a joint briefing at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Onanuga said although there is no timeline for the impending reshuffle, the president has “expressed his desire” to do it.
He said, “Let me tell you, I don’t have any timeline. The President has expressed his desire to reshuffle his cabinet and will do it.
“I don’t know whether he will do it before October 1, but he will surely do it. So that’s what I will say. He has not given us a timeline for his plans, but he will do it. He has expressed his plan and said he wants to do it.”
Also speaking, Ogra said the decision would not be arbitrary but based on performance reports presented by the Special Adviser to the President on Policy Coordination, Hadiza Bala-Usman, who also heads the Central Delivery Coordination Unit.
“The President’s decision to reshuffle his cabinet is also based on empirical evidence. You know, he had said when speaking at the retreat for the ministers that they would have periodic reviews, and the decisions extracted from these reviews would be used to make that final decision.
“I know he has gotten a couple of reports, and as Mr. Onanuga said, when he is ready to do that, he will.”
Recall that the Tinubu government has been facing increasing pressure from within and outside his party, the All Progressives Congress, to sack underperforming ministers in his cabinet.
It was gathered that the President may scrap the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation as part of the cabinet rejig.
Sources at the presidency further hinted that the exercise would also see some portfolios split and others merged into a single entity. At the same time, some ministers would be relieved of their duties.
Although the President warned against underperformance about 10 months ago, the cabinet remained largely intact, save for suspending Dr Betta Edu, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation.
Last November, after a three-day retreat for cabinet members and presidential aides, Tinubu announced that a Central Delivery Coordination Unit headed by Mrs Hadiza Bala-Usman would measure the performance of ministers and other top government officials.
Their performance would determine who would leave or remain, Tinubu stated.
“If you are performing, there is nothing to fear. If you miss the objective, we’ll review it. If there is no performance, you leave us. No one is an island, and the buck stops at my desk,” the President told the participants.
The action will depart from President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, which kept most of his appointees intact for eight years except in some isolated cases.
