Obasanjo readies new cabinet for "challenges ahead"; debate about his "perfomance" continues

Special to USAfricaonline.com
NigeriaCentral.com

Amidst criticisms over his performance in office, downturn in the economy, decaying infrastructure and epileptic power supplies to citizens, Nigeria's president Olusegun Obasanjo dissolved his cabinet to announce a new one. According to USAfricaonline.com sources in Abuja, he has assembled a team who will deal with what he called "challenges ahead." To be sure, there are many of those challenges.

They include the posibility of his running for reelection, religious crises in various parts of Nigeria, a weary populace who seem tired of waiting for the "dividends of democracy" and critical challenges to the federal structure of the country of almost 110 million by ethnic and nationalist groups from various parts of Nigeria. Remarkably, some of Obasanjo's key aides and key ministers were at the vanguard of the failed move for the late brutal dictator Gen. Sani Abacha to succeed himself. Curiously, this did not stop Obasanjo, a retired army general from hiring many of them, with a handful of other retreads from Nigeria's chequered past.
The list of ministers he dropped and their former portfolios are: Dapo Sarumi - Co-operation and Integration in Africa; Tunde Adeniran - Education; Tonye Graham-Douglas - Culture and Tourism; Adamu Hassan - Agriculture; Bekky Igwe - Minister of State, Women Affairs; Tim Menakaya - Health; Ibrahim Bunu - Federal Capital Territory; Sani Zango Daura - Environment; Damishi Sango - Sports and retired General David Jemibewon - Police Affairs.

How well Obasanjo does in his latest effort to lead a new "cabinet" - which needs to be basically fair and representative of all of Nigeria - will offer some indications of where he will be in history. But before history's records are in and contrary to some of the praise from Obasanjo's supporters, Abia State Governor, Orji Uzor Kalu, who belongs to the same ruling part as the president argues strongly that Obasanjo has failed the nation by his "performance" and wasted opportunities to treat all Nigerians fairly and equally.

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