‘President won’t attach importance to ministers,’ PDP says

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has said that ministers will serve no purpose in President Muhammadu Buhari’s government.

The comments were made by PDP National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh during a press briefing in Abuja on Monday, September 28, 2015.

“The flip-flopped promise of our President to name a cabinet, a deadline which he shifted from two weeks of assumption of office to the end of September, is actually a reluctant pledge and done under great duress,” Metuh said.

“From his hesitancy and comments, it is deducible that President Buhari never intended to appoint ministers but rather prefers to run a monocracy and evidently does not value or respect those he would nominate as ministers.

Otherwise, how can anyone repackage the mindset of the President when he, in an interview with France 24 Television in France, stated categorically that his preference is to rule without a cabinet and denigrated ministers as ‘noise makers,’ and of no importance or value in the running of an administration?

Given this worrisome outlook, it is obvious that the Presidency would not attach any value or importance to the ministers under the new sheriff.”

The refusal to have ministers has resulted in the government conveying dictatorial inclinations as amply exhibited in its adamant stance in running a government without the statutory component of an executive cabinet, even when the negative consequences of this strange totalitarian approach are taking serious toll on the polity,” he added.

The PDP had earlier described Buhari as a dictator and said that his delay in appointing a cabinet has caused Nigeria billions in revenue.