• Hot Targets: FIRS, FRSC, PTDF, NTA, FRCN, NYSC, SMEDAN, NIWA CEOs' Jobs
• North Concerned, Apprehensive About Alleged Marginalisation
• Speaker's Slot For Southwest May Upset PDP Zoning
BARELY a week after a significant presidential inauguration that has altered the balance of power shift in Nigeria, worries about major elements in the polity have arisen.
They are: lack of a sense of urgency in government; undue influence of major appointment seekers; quiet concern in the North about power sharing formula; and possibility of PDP installing a neophyte as Speaker in the House of Representatives again.
Specifically, The Guardian noted that in major offices in the bureaucracy and political circles into the weekend, there was concern that only the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) was filled, as the position had been zoned to the Southeast.
It was expected that some key staffers, including the Chief of Staff, and Media Adviser to the President would also have been settled, as the SGF was on ground to issue a statement on the return or otherwise of the erstwhile holders of the two key offices.
What appeared in a few papers was how the President was waiting for a new National Assembly, to secure approval to appoint key advisers and confirm even the media adviser.
In any case, the old Chief of Staff and the Media Adviser, who are apparently waiting for presidential endorsement to continue, are still working with the President even without any announcement.
"But with some sense of urgency, nothing in law and convention prevents the Office of the President from seeking the approval from the current session of the National Assembly," said a former top officer in the Presidency,
"The Assembly remains in office until Monday, June 6 (tomorrow) when a new one is inaugurated. Again, you don't need the legislature to announce appointment or return of the Chief of Staff, as it was done in the case of National Security Adviser (NSA). This kind of quiet gives room for lobbying and all that stuff," the former officer said.
Besides the observation about lack of a sense of urgency in the Presidency, major hotels in Abuja are congested with key lobbyists for federal government appointments.
The worry here is that a group that has specialized in studying tenured appointments, with a view to scuttling the same for new job hungry people, is in control.
Last week, one of the dangers manifested when it was published by a Lagos daily that the Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Mrs. Ifueko Omoigui-Okauru, who has a four-year tenure from April 2008, had been sacked.
The speculative story, according to a source, was not some smoke without fire.
It was gathered before the weekend that the intrigue and conspiracy to scuttle Omoigui-Okauru's tenure that should end in April 2011 actually began long before inauguration committee was set up.
The deal to do that was allegedly inspired by a gang of job-hungry hunters in Abuja that had argued even before the immediate past Attorney-General of the Federation that the FIRS boss's tenure should be counted before the Senate confirmation in April 2008.
The lobbyists for her position had got the former Minister of Finance, Dr. Olusegun Aganga, to secure approval of his colleague in the Justice Ministry, Mohammed Bello Adoke, to that effect: that Mrs. Ifueko Omoigui-Okauru's appointment should actually be counted from 2007 when she was nominated.
The Senate delayed her nomination for about 11 months until April 2008 when she was endorsed for the top job.
But in the way the new Abuja works, there are so many applicants and lobbyists for the job, her achievements notwithstanding.
However, it was learnt that the President actually rejected the person earlier nominated to take over from the first class graduate and chartered accountant, who was brought in the public finance reform agenda of the Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala era, as finance minister under the Olusegun Obasanjo administration.
Despite the publication and denial last week of the FIRS story, it has been confirmed that in the new Abuja where the ruling Party people are on the prowl seeking jobs to take over, many chief executives, including the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF), Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency (SMEDAN), National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA), the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), the NYSC, should have cause to worry.
Reason: There are very serious lobbyists for their jobs, as most of them, too, are beneficiaries of scuttled tenures during the early days of Umaru Yar'Adua's administration.
There are a number of "vacancies" that the new Abuja job seekers have declared for grabs, said a source.
The Guardian had reported last week's Saturday that there were several syndicates in Abuja swindling jobseekers, by collecting their certificates and money for big job opportunities.
Some swindlers had been dropping names of even members and friends of the First Family for the ignoble enterprise in the new Abuja.
MEANWHILE, another concern that may not receive immediate media attention is the quiet frustration that some politicians of northern extraction discuss in hushed tones: alleged exclusion from the scheme of appointments so far.
They are reportedly listing top jobs in Nigeria, as part of the implications of losing the presidency to the South in the last elections.
Yet, the balance may not change significantly soon even as they await more appointments to be made.
As one of the quiet complainants said at the weekend: "See this list in the new Nigeria: The SGF, the NSA, the Chief of Staff, the Chief of Defence Staff and the Chief of Army Staff, DG SSS, DG NIA are already in the kitty of the South.
"This is the trouble now with the Speaker that has been zoned to the Southwest. That is why Hon Tambuwal from the Northwest is receiving the undue attention he is receiving, zoning or no zoning."
Reminded that the same scenario played out in the last administration of President Yar'Adua when the SGF, NSA, DG SSS, Defence Chief, Army Chief, etc., were also from the North, the source said:
"But now the presidential politics that brought the new President to office may have significantly altered the critical elements that had hitherto made the winner to take all.
"We all fought for the powerful mandate and our people would like some sense of belonging..."
It was gathered last night that the floor of the House of Representatives on Monday may be a theatre of political war to elect the Speaker from Northwest in the name of "expediency of independence of the House of Representatives."
The opposition coalition from the ANPP, CAN and CPC may gang up against the PDP zoning formula, even as there is no such rebellion against the party's zoning in the Senate.
IN the meantime, another concern that has dominated discussion after the presidential inauguration balls in Abuja is the novel but inexplicable tradition of the military authorities tampering with the civil authorities' constitutional provision of Oath of Office and Oath of Allegiance.
At the May 29 presidential inauguration at Abuja Eagle Square, the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces was made to take some symbols of authorities from the Chief of Defence as "symbols of authority."
As recorded by The Guardian last Monday, at 12:54pm on Sunday, the Chief Registrar of Supreme Court invited President Goodluck Jonathan for Oath of Office and Oath of Allegiance, and "at 12:55pm, it was over as the President signed the Oath documents."
"It was then the turn of President Jonathan to be presented with his instrument of office, as the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, which is the Nigerian Coat of Arms.
"The 'solemn and revered' purely military ceremony started with the Commander, Brigade of Guards, receiving it and handing over to the Chief of Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshall Oluseyi Petinrin, who marched up the presidential dais to hand it over to the President.
"To show the significance of the Coat of Arms, it was carefully placed into a presidential limousine and guarded by armed troops. With armed escorts, it was escorted out of the arena..."
Source: A Week After Inauguration Abuja Chokes Under Lobbyists, Hustlers (http://ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=50268:a-week-after-inauguration-abuja-chokes-under-lobbyists-hustlers&catid=1:national&Itemid=559)