As the nation awaits President Muhammadu Buhari’s ministerial list, the president yesterday stated he would head the Ministry of Petroleum Resources.
Buhari dropped the hint in one of the interviews he granted one of the foreign media in his hotel shortly before departing New York.
The President was in New York to participate in the 70th United Nations General Assembly.
“I will serve as the Minister of Petroleum Resources myself,” Buhari told his interviewer.
The nation’s petroleum sector has been stated to be enmeshed in corruption with millions of dollars stated to be missing in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.
Shortly after assuming office, Buhari sacked and replaced the management of the company.
The new management had started a general reorganization of the firm.
Buhari had on Monday stated the trial of those who looted the NNPC would commence soon.
Meanwhile, ministerial list that President Muhammadu Buhari will submit to the Senate today will not contain all the members of his proposed cabinet, it was learnt.
Based on what was gathered, what would be transmitted to the Senate this week would not be a complete list of nominees.
A top government official familiar with the arrangement stated Buhari would send the names of the nominees to the Senate in batches.
“What the Senate will be getting on Tuesday or Wednesday will not be a complete list. The names will be sent in batches but quite a number will be on this first list while others will be compiled and sent later,” the source stated.
The President may have decided to send the names in batches in order to meet the September deadline he set for himself rather than waiting to compile the full list and fail to beat the deadline.
any positive result on Tuesday.
The issue of the list has however been generating concerns among members of Buhari’s delegation to the 70th United Nations General Assembly holding in New York.
Many of the politicians on the President’s delegation who felt they might be considered for ministerial positions were getting in touch with Nigeria intermittently on the telephone for latest information on the list while they also kept making themselves visible for Buhari.
Some of them who could not hide their anxiety began asking Nigerian journalists if they had latest information on the list.
Prominent chiefs of the All Progressives Congress on the President’s delegation include a former Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi; a former Ekiti State Governor, Kayode Fayemi; and a former member of the House of Representatives, Abike Dabiri-Erewa among others.