By Ikechukwu Okaforadi
The All Progressives Congress (APC) National Working Committee (NWC) has justified the 48 ministerial nominations sent to the Nigerian Senate by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for confirmation, saying the president acted within the ambit of the constitution and his executive prerogative.
Senator Ajibola Bashiru, National Secretary of the party made the clarification while fielding reporters’ questions at the end of the maiden meeting of the Abdullahi Ganduje-led in NWC of APC, Tuesday in Abuja .
Nigerians and opinion leaders have criticized the number of nominees as bogus, unwieldy and failed short of the belt- tightening narrative the administration appears to be pushing forward as the nation’s economy and currency wobble along.
Critics have also challenged the decision of the president to send additional nominees for some of the states and political zones such that those states and geopolitical zones tilted the intendment of the constitution in favour of equity, balance and fairness.
Bashiru however noted that the President’s nominations are in consonance with the constitution which allows him to make 37 nominations per state and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). The rest he said is in accord with executive prerogative to make more nominations provided no constitutional provisions is violated
“On the issue of ministerial nominees, opinion is free, heterogeneous in a democratic society. So that should be made very clear . By the constitution of Nigeria, every state is expected to have a ministerial nominee at least .
For the first time President appointed a nominee from the FCT for which the FCT people where happy.
“So we have mandatory, minimum of 37 ministers by constitutional provisions so adding an additional 10 on.
I think it is prerogative of the executive, Section 5 of the Constitution is clear that the President is vested with executive powers, for which he may exercise directly, personally or through ministers that he has appointed.
So, that said, anybody is free to make comments as to the size of the ministers and as to the compositions of the ministers. And that essentially is with the prerogative of the President, having regard to Section 5 of the constitution of Nigeria, and mind you Section 1(1) of the constitution of Nigeria says Nigeria shall be governed in accordance with the Constitution.
So the President has not done anything that is outside the confines of the Constitution”.
On the concluded NWC meeting he said the main agenda was the repositioning of the party, ensuring that all organs of the party from ward to national levels function optimally.
“We discuss on the progress of our party, we also deliberated on improving the internal mechanisms or processes of our party.
The agenda is to reposition our party to support the administration of President Bola Tinubu, our governors and National Assembly members, and also to reposition our party to win all elections henceforth and of course, the need to strengthen the three wings of our party, the youth, women and people with disability wings.
“The meetings of the NWC will be regular and they will also be regular briefings of the press as to what the NWC committee is doing.
“We are going to interface with the leadership of our party at the national ,state and zonal level to ensure that we have a re-energize party whose activities are not only limited to when elections are done.
Adding his voice, Spokesman of the party Barrister Felix Morka disclosed that the maiden NWC meeting under Senator Ganduje deliberated among other things, on the setting of campaign council of the forthcoming off season elections in Imo, Bayelsa and Kogi state.
“We did go into discussion about how to fashion the a national campaign councils for each of the states, for each of the states also will have to put together their own state campaign councils.
“So we did look at the criteria for bringing people together to populate the council in order to provide the needed support to the state campaign councils and to energize the capital of the party to ensure that, come the election we will prevail in winning those states for our party.”
