Former President Obasanjo And Tinubu At War Over President Buhari’s Ministerial List

The yet to be released Ministerial list of President Muhammadu Buhari is reportedly sparking controversy amongst the nation’s political big guns.

Former President Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and former Lagos State governor, Bola Tinubu, are reportedly at logger heads over the formation of President Muhammadu Buhari’s cabinet.

It was learnt that the first casualty in the war between the two politicians was the former Lagos state commissioner for finance and a nominee of Tinubu into the cabinet, Wale Edun.

According to New Telegraph Edun, who Tinubu had suggested to Buhari as minister of finance, has been overlooked despite being screened by the security service.

He is to be replaced by the former Lagos state commissioner for budget and economic planning, Yemi Cardoso, as a Lagos representative in the cabinet. Obasanjo, together with Ibikunle Amosun, the Ogun state governor, also reportedly opposed Tinubu’s decision to ensure Edun became the Ogun state appointee.

The former president reportedly called Tinubu and urged him to stop pushing Edun as the Ogun state nominee. He was said to have cautioned that Ogun people would not let Tinubu fill the slot of the state with somebody whose work and career were rooted in Lagos state.

Obasanjo and Amosun have decided to give the state’s slot in the cabinet to a former PDP national auditor, Chief Bode Mustapha. Insiders said the two recent visits of Obasanjo to Buhari in Abuja were first to submit his ministerial list and for further discussions.

Appointees of the former president in Buhari’s cabinet comprise the former Osun state governor, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola (Osun); the former governor of Ekiti state and now the deputy national chairman (South) of the APC, Chief Segun Oni (Ekiti); Mustapha (Ogun), the former minister of education, Oby Ezekwesili and the erstwhile governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Prof. Chukwuma Soludo.

The source further said: “Tinubu and Akande’s visit to President Buhari on September 9 was an impromptu meeting. An influential official in the presidency told them of Obasanjo’s surreptitious moves to corner the ministerial nominees from the South-West. This is why the two leaders visited.”

“On Obasanjo’s ministerial list, former Governor Oyinlola featured just as his name featured from the list submitted from the state. There was no resistance to Oyinlola’s nominee because that was part of the agreement before his defection from the PDP to the APC. The party has fulfilled one leg of the agreement by ceding the senatorial slot to Senator Isiaka Adeleke who also defected from PDP to the APC,” a significant member of the APC said.

The source added that based on Tinubu’s grievance, the president pledged to look into the issue.