Fayose Writes Buhari, Begs To Nominate Minister

The governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose, has said he will be happy to nominate a worthy candidate for appointment in President Muhammadu Buhari’s cabinet.

Fayose, in a statement on June 2, Tuesday, called on Buhari to grant him the honour of naming the minister that would come from Ekiti state, Punch reports.

The governor said: “I shall be happy to nominate a worthy and competent professional, who can always oblige Your Excellency and your cabinet the benefit of a second opinion in the serious business of governance.”

According to him, he had already written to the President on the matter and was awaiting his reply which he hopes would be favourable.

He explained that his letter was on the strength of Section 147 sub (2) and (3) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, which states: (2) Any appointment to the office of the Minister of the government of the Federation shall, if the nomination of any such person to such office is confirmed by the Senate, be made by the President. (3) Any appointment under sub-section (2) of this section by the President shall be in conformity with the provision of section 15 (3) of this constitution provided that in giving effect to the provision aforesaid, the President shall appoint at least one Minister from each state, who shall be an indigene of such state.

Fayose pointed out that Buhari had earlier declared that he would put the overall interest of the country above every other particularly political partisanship and bias, hence his letter to the president.

He cited the case of Olusegun Obasanjo and Chief Bola Ige as example. According to him, though Obasanjo was a member of the Peoples Democratic Party, he appointed the late Ige, who was a chief of the opposition Alliance for Democracy, as the Minister for Justice.

Fayose, who was one of Buhari’s biggest opponents in the run-up to the March presidential election, said this in a statement on Tuesday.

Recall that during the presidential election campaign period, Fayose was one of the biggest opponents of Buhari. He even went as far as publishing a death advertisement on Punch and Sun newspapers, showing Nigeria’s past leaders comprising late Gen. Sani Abacha, Murtala Muhammed, Musa Yar’Adua and the photograph of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari with a question mark on his image.

19 aggrieved All Progressives Congress (APC) lawmakers in the state, are seeking to impeach Fayose. All attempts to settle the rift between the governor and the APC lawmakers have proved abortive.