MINISTERIAL NOMINATION SPLITS ANPP LEADERSHIP

Ahead of its national convention, the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) is embroiled in fresh crisis over the list of ministerial nominees forwarded to President Goodluck Jonathan and the candidates actually sworn in as ministers.

The two ministers hitherto nominated into the government of late President Umaru Yar'Adua by the ANPP in the spirit of Government of National Unity (GNU) were sacked alongside others by the then Acting President Goodluck Jonathan in a cabinet dissolution effected on March 17. They were Abdulrahaman Adamu and Mrs. Salamatu Suleiman.

However, no ANPP nominee was among the 38 new ministers appointed on April 6, when President Jonathan reconstituted the cabinet.

Daily Sun investigations revealed that the President had communicated the ANPP leadership that he would sustain the GNU therefore, the party should forward the names of its two ministerial nominees to him.

National Chairman of the Party, Chief Edwin Ume-Ezeoke confirmed to Daily Sun that the party only forwarded the names of the two former Ministers, Adamu and Salamatu, back to President Jonathan for appointments.

The leadership of the ANPP was however, taken aback when it saw the list forwarded by the President to the Senate for screening and confirmation, indicating that the name of Abdulrahaman Adamu had been replaced with that of Mrs. Yabawa Lawan Wali (Bornu). Wali was not in the original list submitted by the party.

While Mrs. Wali was made Minister of State for Finance, Salamatu was deployed to Foreign Affairs Ministry as Minister of State II.

Some of the national leaders of the party felt shortchanged by the development and are pointing fingers in the direction of the Borno State governor, Ali Modu Sheriff as having masterminded the substitution without the knowledge of the National Secretariat.

Chief Ezeoke confirmed that one of the nominees, Wali was not on the list forwarded to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) for onward transmission to the President.

He promised that his party would take a decision on the matter. 'One of the nominees is not known to us, her name was not in our list to the President.'

Efforts made to get the reaction of the Borno State governor on the matter proved abortive as at press time.