Ministerial List: After about 56 days in office, Tinubu has till Friday to appoint ministers

Tamarauemi Ebimini

President Bola Tinubu has up till 28 July to send his ministerial nominees to the Senate for screening and confirmation in accordance with the provision of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).

The constitution stipulates that the president and governors have a 60-day window to appoint ministers and commissioners from the date they are sworn in.

Section 42 of this Constitution as amended states that – (a) the nomination of any person to the office of a Minister for confirmation by the Senate shall be done within sixty days after the date the President has taken the oath of office;

(b) not less than ten per cent of persons appointed as Ministers shall be women:

Provided that the President may appoint a Minister at any other time during his tenure and such appointment shall be subject to confirmation by the Senate”.

The document also provides that the president shall appoint at least a minister from each of the 36 states of the federation.

Mr Tinubu, inaugurated on 29 May, has yet to appoint the cabinet ministers 56 days after.

However, there are speculations that Mr Tinubu may have submitted the ministerial list to the Senate last week, but the upper chamber is delaying the announcement because of some changes being effected on the list.

Reports say that one of the changes made was that of the former governor of Kano State, Abdullahi Ganduje, who was originally on the list but is now being considered for the chairmanship of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

Mr Ganduje is being tipped to replace Abdullahi Adamu, who resigned last week alongside the party’s National Secretary, Iyiola Omisore.

The president reportedly favours the former Kano governor over a former governor of Nasarawa State, Tanko Al-Makura, who had been positioned to take over from Mr Adamu. Mr Al-Makura was one of the party’s chairmanship aspirants last year.