The Presidency, on Wednesday, confirmed that President Bola Tinubu will soon reshuffle his 47-man cabinet, and that performance will play a determining role on who returns as a minister.
Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, disclosed this to journalist at the State House, Abuja. He explained that the exercise, which may be carried out before or after Independence Day on October 1, will be evidence-based as President Tinubu will be aided in his decision by public opinions that have been empirically extracted.
Onanuga, said there is no timeline to when the President will reshuffle his cabinet, which was inaugurated in August, 2023, but said he could not be categorical about when he will do it.
His words: “I don’t have any timeline. The President has expressed his desire to reshuffle his cabinet and he will do it. I don’t know whether he’s going to do it before October 1, but he will surely do it. So that’s what I will say. He has not given us any timeline of when he will do it, but he will do it. He has expressed his plan to do it”.
“The President has given an order to all his ministers at the last federal Executive Council meeting to go out there and speak about the activities of his administration. Some of them have been media shy, television shy, radio shy, and he wants them to overcome all that and go out there and speak about what they have been doing.
“Because the feeling out there is that the government is not doing enough and the government has been doing a lot. It is up to them to go out there and blow their own trumpet. They should go out there and talk about what their ministries have been doing”, he said.
Further on the planned cabinet shake-up, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Digital and New Media, O’tega Ogra, explained, “The President would be making reference to the performance indicator, which is being coordinated by Special Adviser to the President on Policy Coordination and head of the Central Delivery Coordination Unit, Hajia Hadiza Bala Usman.
“We also need to realize that the President’s decision to reshuffle is also based on empirical evidence. He has said it during the retreat for the ministers that they were going to have periodic reviews, and the decisions that are extracted from these reviews will be used to make that final decision.
“I know he’s gotten a couple of reports, and as Mr. Onanuga said, when he is ready to do that, I believe he will”, said.
