* What would President Jonathan’s gamble breed?

By Jide Ajani

This report is without   prejudice to the shining tails of spectacular performances of former ministers (see accompanying piece) who went through the Senate’s confirmation session last week; but seeks to unveil what went down behind-the-scenes in the build-up to the nomination and eventual security clearance given the 34 ministerial- nominees sent to the Senate.  President Goodluck Jonathan has promised Nigerians transformation.  He would need a good, very good, team to help him achieve that. This report asks: Will the team being put together deliver?

Like all politicians, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, is expected to either succeed or fail as Nigeria’s President.  He has already embarked on the  voyage for either.

Now, whether he succeeds or fails, is a determination that he alone can wrought.
The issues:  This is the first time that a pan-Nigerian electoral victory would be won by a President.  Therefore, Nigerians expect President Jonathan to pay them back with good governance.

Then, there is the issue of paying back political debt to those with whom he consulted in his bid to win the presidential elections.

Locating the trajectory for both and simultaneously transforming the nation is going to be a difficult one for Jonathan.

Therefore, when immediately after his victory he chose to go for a working retreat at Obudu Cattle Ranch, Cross River State, he didn’t need to make a show of it.  But he did.  And, that was where his problems started from.
Rather than be his own man and select a list of ministerial nominees that would help in that voyage of transformation, President Jonathan chose to pander to the dictates of a few friends, party leaders and a large contingent of bootlickers. And things naturally, became complicated.

Sunday Vanguard was informed that the idea of requesting that state chapters of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, should send at least 10 names each for ministerial consideration was sold to the President as a way of carrying along many party leaders, in their order of contribution to his electoral victory.  He bought it.

However, the sign of real trouble started when serving ministers, PDP state chairmen, National Executive Committee, NEC, members of the party hijacked the process and forwarded their own names without scruples.  What that created was a mélange of names of about 360 nominees from among whom just between 36 and 42 were to be selected.  Typical of all matters PDP, shambles was introduced into the process and it left the President more confused than assisted. They loaded President Jonathan with all manner of characters in the guise of ministerial nominees.

Sunday Vanguard  learnt that it was “this attitude of the party leaders that created that problem of seeming indecision by the President and which also accounted for why there was that delay in assembling the team”.

However, by the time President Jonathan recalibrated himself, seeing that as it were, “he is the one who would carry the can, he began the process of doing what he ought to have done in the beginning: be his own man.  He simply started the process of getting those he thought he needed while leaving a margin of error for the politicians”, a  source very close to the process of nominating the ministers told Sunday Vanguard.

Then, again, there was another sudden challenge: Security.

It waas gathered that there was a shadow security screening before the real security screening.
“The President needed to be sure that those whose names he would be sending forward do not end up having security baggage at the end of the day”.

Sunday Vanguard discovered that some politicians frowned at the role the State Security Service, SSS, was to play in the process. Pressure was surreptitiously exerted on President Jonathan to discountenance the role of SSS but he refused to shift.

That was how Sunday Vanguard stumbled on a decree, tagged “SSS Instrument Number One, an amended version of the National Security Agencies Decree of 1986, Cap 278, Law of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Section 2, Sub-Section 3”.

Sunday Vanguard gathered from very dependable security sources that one of the functions of SSS is the vetting of prospective appointees to public offices in the country.

Information available to Sunday Vanguard also suggested that in the last days of then military head of state, General Abdulsalami Abubabakar, this law was amended. The amendment done by Gen. Abubakar was with a view to further strengthening the national security requirement of any prospective public office appointee. The amendment was carried out on May 23, 1999, as the National Security Agencies Decree. A source also informed Sunday Vanguard that one of the requirements of the Senate before calling any nominee for clearance is a security report emanating from the screening carried out on such a nominee, albeit by SSS.

This has also become very necessary, Sunday Vanguard was told, “because of the national security implications and allegiance of any prospective appointee”.

Therefore, the sequence of clearing the nominees by the SSS, it was learnt, was such that President Jonathan sent the names in batches, thereby allowing the  security agency to carry out a thorough screening of the nominees.

It was gathered that, three weeks ago on a Friday evening, at about 5:30, the list of the first set of nominees cleared was sent to Aso Rock Presidential Villa. Only 11 nominees were cleared as at that time.

The Office of the Chief of Staff to The President, Sunday Vanguard was told, received the list from the security agency.  On that same day, another list of 20 nominees was sent to SSS for security screening.  However, according to information made available to Sunday Vanguard, one of the names on the list of 20 was dropped.

It was dropped on the orders of President Jonathan, reducing the nominees to 19.

The 19 were, thereafter, cleared by SSS, bringing the total number of cleared nominees to 30.  Another list of four was later added bringing the total to 34.

By penultimate Friday, a fresh list of 12 nominees was forwarded to SSS from the President. Sunday Vanguard learnt that the “thinking in the Presidency and the directorate of SSS is that the names, coming in batches do not affect anything. The number of those who have been cleared as at the weekend would not in any way affect the issue of Senate clearance for the nominees.  Since there is no way the Senate can clear all the 34 nominees that have scaled the security screening in one day, the remaining eight nominees can always be sent to the Senate later”, a source said.

Sunday Vanguard further gathered that in the instance of some nominees who would have ordinarily scaled the security clearance, matters such as the tenure of one as a scholarship board chairperson in one of the North-West states came to light and simply forced a disqualification.

Sunday Vanguard also learnt that the matter of the Petroleum Development Trust Fund, PDTF, came into focus, leading to the disqualification of another prospective nominee.

In the instance of Madam Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the story was everywhere that her name was on the list of nominees.  It turned out that her name never appeared on the list.  What accounted for this, an Aso Rock insider confided in Sunday Vanguard, was because she is “yet to clear her desk and sort herself out.  Talks have been held between her and Mr. President.” Therefore, if she becomes appointed, it would have been the result of weeks of hard negotiations.

In another instance, a prospective nominee from one of the states in the North- Central zone was considered too old and frail to be appointed a minister.  He was dropped.

But the politics of it also paid off for some nominees.
Olusegun Aganga, Sunday Vanguard learnt, was one of the nominees whose names was sent in the last batch but he has since been cleared already.

Section 147, sub-sections 5 and 6 of the 1999 Constitution as amended states that:
“(5) No person shall be appointed as a Minister of the Government of the Federation unless he is qualified for election as a member of the House of Representatives.

“(6) An appointment to any of the offices aforesaid shall be deemed to have been made where no return has been received from the Senate within twenty-one working days of the receipt of nomination by the Senate”.

It is in obedience to that section of the constitution that the Senate is carrying out the screening.

But President Jonathan owes over 150 million Nigerians the delivery of transformation that he has promised.

Jonathan’s cabinet would give direction whether Nigeria is headed the right way and upwards or whether the President has chosen to continue digging deep down the abyss.