All Eyes On Gbajabiamila, El-Rufai As Tinubu Makes First Appointments

All eyes would be on the outgoing Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, and former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, as President Bola Tinubu makes his first appointments.

The president would be following in the long established practice of making immediate appointments that would help him run the government before the National Assembly is convened.

Since all appointments must be sanctioned and approved by the National Assembly, the Senate in particular, the constitution vested powers on the president to make new appointments to run the government.

The three positions Tinubu who was sworn in on Monday would be making appointments to are Chief of Staff, CoS, to the President, regarded as the clearing house; Secretary to the Government of Federation, SGF, regarded as the bridge between the government and civil service; and his spokesman, Presidential Adviser on Media and Publicity.

While the CoS would act as the clearing house to carry out his administrative duty, the SGF would interface with the Permanent Secretaries, who have taken over from the ministers in Buhari’s government for proper functioning of the civil service.

The president’s spokesman, as the name implies, would manage the president’s communication activities until a proper formation of his government.

For months, Gbajabiamila has been acting like the CoS and has been tipped as the ideal man that the president would announce.

A member of the president’s camp told our Correspondent that, “There’s no opposition to Gbajabiamila, none that I know of but the president has not said anything in that regard. He’s still keeping his card close to himself.

“But to the best of my knowledge and all those around the president, including his closest confidants, it’s Gbaja (Gbajabiamila).

Also three names have been said to have been arrived at by the president as his SGF.

Prominent among them is El-Rufai. The former Kaduna State Governor was instrumental to Tinubu’s emergence as presidential candidate of the APC in June of 2022 despite the presidency and the party leadership’s schemes.

Also, his counterparts from Katsina State, Aminu Masari, and Kebbi State, Atiku Bagudu, are in the list.

An outsider for the SGF position is former Plateau State Governor, Simon Lalong, who was Campaign Director General of the Tinubu campaign.

It was gathered he is enjoying huge support for being a Christian since both the president and his vice are Muslims.

Also, a party source said the agreement was reached for the SGF position to be left for the Northcentral during the consideration of the principal positions for the national assembly.

That puts Lalong in reckoning if party consideration would be considered.

The president’s appointments, it was gathered, would likely be made after the state banquet to toast to the new administration.