New details have emerged on the main reason behind President Muhammadu Buhari’s choice of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and the Chief of Staff to the President (CoS).
It was gathered that Buhari’s choice was because of fear of the influence of some prominent members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the need to weaken such influences ahead of the next election in 2019.
According to sources close to the administration, Buhari’s choice was influenced by the need to curb loyalists of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in the APC, who are trying to take complete hold of power in the current administration.
The sources claimed that President Buhari did not want to appoint anyone who could be easily influenced by powerful camps in the APC like that of former vice president, Atiku Abubakar and the party’s national leader, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The sources alleged that David Lawal Babachir’s appointment as the SGF was specifically targeted at Atiku, as it is believed that Babachir, who hails from the same Adamawa state as the former vice-president would corner the influence from that axis.
A source disclosed that the likes of former governor of Anambra state, Senator Chris Ngige, who is considered to be close to Tinubu was dropped to reduce the influence of some powerful APC forces.
A source who spoke on condition of anonymity said: “The whole appointments were done against the backdrop of what happens in 2019. There are fears that the camps of Atiku and Tinubu still hold enormous influence and that allowing them the control of the SGF may be counterproductive to the president.
“The truth is that the president may not be interested in a second term in office but he will certainly be interested in who succeeds him, looking at what his government is doing to tackle the former President Goodluck Jonathan administration currently.”
It was further gathered from the sources that more shocks await politicians in respect to coming appointments as the president will continue to undercut the influential politicians by bringing out relatively unknown persons.
Reports at the weekend indicated that President Buhari met with some leaders of the APC concerning his ministerial list and what he intends to do.
Some party leaders had earlier raised an alarm that they were in the dark over the president’s current ministerial appointment process, which has been greeted with a lot of criticisms.
