Feedback From Nigerians Informed Ministers’ Sack — Presidential Aide

The Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, has disclosed that the recent discharge of some ministers from the Federal Executive Council (FEC) was based on Nigerians’ perception and empirical facts.

LEADERSHIP reports that President Tinubu had on Wednesday dismissed Minister of Women Affairs, Barr. Uju-Ken Ohanenye, her counterparts in the Ministry of Tourism, Lola Ade-John; Education Ministry, Prof. Tahir Mamman (SAN); Minister of State for Housing and Urban Development, Abdullahi Gwarzo, and Jamila Bio Ibrahim, previously the Minister of Youth Development.

RELATED: Ex-Minister Kennedy-Ohanenye Breaks Silence On Dismissal From Tinubu’s Cabinet

In an interview on Arise News Channel, Onanuga said Tinubu acted in the best interest of Nigerians, adding that the Special Adviser to the President on Policy and Coordination, Hadiza Bala Usman, played a role in the ministers’ dismissal from the cabinet.

Onanuga said Bala-Usman was assigned to oversee a performance appraisal, which involved gathering public feedback on the ministers’ work, emphasising that the Nigerian government needed a lot of hands to tackle the problem that the country was facing.

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“When the ministers were sworn in, the President actually told them that as the president, he has the power to hire and fire, and that he would not hesitate to remove ministers who could not perform.

“There was a retreat in October last year where he also repeated the same warning about his plan to always try to rejig his cabinet in case some are not performing well.

“It was not just something that was done whimsically, I think Hadiza Bala Usman, Special Adviser on Policy and Coordination, in fact brought technology into it by asking Nigerians to score the ministers. So, whoever was removed was based on some empirical facts and their public perception. Nigerians actually did the scorecard and the President acted on the results,” he said.

The Presidential spokesperson, however, noted that the dismissal of the Ministers did not necessarily mean that they were not meeting Tinubu’s expectations.

“But the expectation of the public. Some weeks ago at the cabinet meeting, the President actually challenged the ministers to go out and tell Nigerians what they have been doing for the past one year or so.

“According to the president, the perception outside there by the people is that the people feel that the government is not performing, and the government believes that the government is performing, but the ministers were not going out to really project government the appropriate way,” he stated.