The President-elect, Bola Tinubu has pencilled down some crucial allies to fill important positions in his administration.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, is rumored to have been assigned the position of Chief of Staff for the President-elect, Bola Tinubu, who will assume office as the 16th President of Nigeria on May 29.
Along with other well-known names now being mentioned for various posts, his former commissioner for finance, Wale Edun, and the governor of Kebbi State, Atiku Bagudu, are rumored to be under consideration for important positions in the incoming administration.
Sources within Tinubu’s camp who spoke to ENIGERIA confirmed the appointment with Gbajabiamila already discharging his duties as the CoS.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives has resumed unofficially, scheduling Tinubu’s activities and itineraries ahead of the May 29 inauguration.
“He has technically resumed with him in Paris, and they are trying to work out process and plans,” the source noted.
Furthermore, Tinubu has appointed Edu and Bagudu into his economic team, which he considered a critical sector requiring attention immediately he assumes office.
The source continued, “Wale is supposed to be the coordinator of the economy, either as Finance Minister or the CBN governor. It is not clear yet what his plans are for Bagudu. But he has also been penciled in and is going to be operating at a very high and serious level in the administration.”
On Removal Of Subsidy
Meanwhile, the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council has said the incoming administration of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu will decide the date the fuel subsidy will be removed.
Festus Keyamo, the PCC spokesman revealed this on Sunday, disclosing that the next government would determine the terminal date for the subsidy regime.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited recently said the country was spending over N400bn monthly on petroleum subsidy which it argued is largely unsustainable.
Keyamo said in a statement on Sunday that he had no doubt that the Tinubu administration would stop subsidy payments in accordance with the Buhari administration’s plan.
The former Lagos governor, he advised, should be left alone to select the date on which he would like to carry it out since government, unlike all policy, is not a continuous process.
The PCC spokesman also added that the FG decided on June 2023 as the formal end date for fuel subsidies because the budget did not include them past that time.
He stated, “It is one of the policies by which we campaigned. I cannot sit here and tell you when exactly it will be done. But the removal of subsidies is something that the president-elect pledged to do. Not only him. Virtually all the leading presidential candidates took the same position.
“Why the FG targeted June (to end subsidy) was that the budget only provided for subsidy up to June. That was the reason. But the new government will decide when it wants to of course, you know that when a new government takes over, the country is at its beck and call. Yes, I agree that government is a continuum. But all policies are not a continuum.”