By Daniel Idonor
AHEAD of the 2011 Presidential primaries of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, slated for January 13, 2011, it is obvious that President Goodluck Jonathan and Vice President Namadi Sambo will not enjoy the presence of all cabinet members in their campaign train, as more ministers are set to quit the government.

This is barely six days after the Minister of Information and Communications, Prof. Dora Akunyili, announced her resignation from the Jonathan’s government which she assisted in its emergence bid.

Top presidency source confided in Vanguard that the President was not in anyway perturbed by the looming mass exodus of the ministers from the government, saying those leaving should be the ones to be afraid, as to what becomes of their political business, in the nearest future, and certainly not Jonathan.

The source listed Senator Bala Mohammed, Mrs Josephine Anenih, Senator Mohammed Daggash, Elder Godsday Orubebe, Dr Usman Shamsudeen, Olorogun Kenneth Gbagi, Mrs Diezani Allison-Madueke, the two Ministers of State, Dr Idi Hong and Hajiya Salamatu Sulieman; and Chief Kayode Adetokunbo among few others, as those who carry political weight.

“In fact, we are not happy that many of them have failed to highlight the positive or progress report of their ministries which would have provided the much desired political mileage for Jonathan’s presidency,” the source said.

Our source disclosed that “most of them except very few were hurriedly gathered by Mr President with a view to stabilising and reducing tension in the polity, shortly after Jonathan was sworn-in as substantive president, so to that extent, we are not surprised.

Many lack political value

“Many of them, just take a look round the Council Chambers (venue of the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting) you will agree with me that there are many political liabilities here, rather than being assets to our political campaigns. Worst off, are our brothers and sisters from the North, no value politically,” the angry-looking source said.

Vanguard gathered that unlike the Anambra-born Prof. Akunyili, who is quitting the PDP  for her newly found love, the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, to contest a senatorial seat, the other possible runaway cabinet members may be joining the gubernatorial race in their respective states.

Those on our list, as at the last count, are the Minister of Police Affairs, Alhaji Adamu Waziri, who hails from Yobe State; Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Dr Idi Hong, from Adamawa State and the Minister of Sports, Alhaji Ibrahim Bio, from Kwara State.

At different points, both the Ministers of the Niger Delta, Godsday Orubebe, FCT, Senator Bala Mohammed and that of State for Education, Olorogun Kenneth Gbagi nurtured the ambition but had to drop the idea, for the obvious fact, that “a bird in hand is worth thousands in the bush,” believing that “he who fights and runs away lives to fight another day.”

The first female Minister of Petroleum Resources and alleged Shell spy in the government, Mrs Diezani Allison-Madueke, was also said to be under pressure at one time to join issues with incumbent Timipre Sylva in the scramble for the soul of Creek Heavens in Bayelsa State.