LAGOS NOVEMBER 15TH (URHOBOTODAY Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Chieftain, Chief Sunny Onuesoke has described the ministerial portfolios assigned to the ministers as putting ‘round pegs in square holes’.
Reacting to President Muhammadu Buhari’s statement that he ensured round pegs were placed in round holes to avoid non-performances as regards designation of portfolio’s to the newly sworn-in 36 ministers, Onuesoke, while speaking to newsmen on Wednesday during PDP convention in Abuja faulted the President’s statement saying the portfolios assigned to the various ministers negate their professional skills.
He wondered why Babatunde Fashola who is a lawyer should be assigned three significant ministries of power, housing and works that are not related to his profession and when there are abundant qualified Nigerians engineers and labour specialist who could easily be fix into these round holes.
“Where are the round pegs in round holes? Ngige with medical background is now labour minister. Fayemi with experience in military, security and politics is now minister of solid mineral. I don’t know whether to weep over the appointment of Adamu Adamu as the Minister of Education or not. Making a journalist as the Supervising Minister to resuscitate the moribund state of education in a country like ours is bad enough. But making a Professor of Education and a former Vice-Chancellor of a Nigerian University, Anthony Anwukah a junior minister reporting to Adamu Adamu shows the value we place on education, Onuesoke stated, adding that the appointment should have been the other way round.
He faulted the appointment of Kemi Adeosun as Minister of Finance saying with the present challenged economy, significant dip in revenues, risk of inflation running riot, naira under very significant pressure, foreign financial organizations exiting our bond markets, liquidity squeeze and the need to churn out policies that will impact the economy positively, she does not have the clout and the pedigree to run the Ministry.
He said his greatest disappointment is the appointment of James Ocholi as Minister of State for Labour. According to him, “Here was a man who shone like a million stars during screening and spoke like a law professor now made a Minister of State for Labour. Ocholi should be the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation. Being a side kick to Chris Ngige is curious.”