VIEW FROM THE GALLERY BY MAHMUD JEGA
One would have thought that while the sizzling scandal over the “ghost”’ Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council [PFIPC], its “imposter” Director General Mathew Adeniyi Adeyemi [the proper arrangement of his names is still in dispute] and his “forged” presidential appointment letter has gripped the headlines in Nigeria for several weeks now, is subject to a [quiet] ICPC probe and a public hearing by a House of Representatives committee, the Presidency will by now have no further appetite for scandal.
But then, in short order, came this matter of “One agency, two heads” as one newspaper described it. More than a month ago, on June 26, the Presidency had announced the appointment of former House of Representatives spokesperson Abdulrazaq Namdas as Director General of the Border Communities Development Agency, BCDA. The Presidency’s statement, signed by Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy Bayo Onanuga, said “the appointment took immediate effect” and that Namdas was appointed “to replace Dr Dakorinama Alabo George, who resigned to contest for an elective post in his home state” of Rivers.
No surprise there, because the Presidency had given a deadline of March 31 for any public officer seeking to contest in 2027 elections to resign his position. Many did, most notably Foreign Affairs Minister Yusuf Tuggar, Minister of Power Adebayo Adelabu, Transportation Minister Sa’idu Alkali, Minister of State for Humanitarian Affairs Yusuf Tanko Sununu, Executive Secretary of Petroleum Technology Development Fund [PTDF] Ahmed Galadima, and George. Of these six, Galadima won the Adamawa APC’s governorship ticket, Sununu got a Kebbi APC senatorial ticket while the other four did not succeed. Neither Tuggar, nor Adelabu, nor Alkali tried to return to their vacated seats; Tuggar’s exalted post is already occupied by Mrs. Bianca Ojukwu while Joseph Olasunkanmi Tegbe now sits smugly in Adelabu’s [electric] chair.
