Nigerian president also plans to be oil minister

Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari is to take personal charge of the country’s crucial oil portfolio, his spokesman, Femi Adesina said on Tuesday, as a deadline loomed for him to finally nominate his cabinet.

Buhari took office at the end of May but said he needed time to ensure designated ministers are free of the corruption that is endemic in this West African nation.

The president, who announced this in a broadcast in Abuja to mark Nigeria’s 55th Independence Anniversary, said subsequent list would be forwarded to the senate in due course.

On power, Buhari said government officials had held a series of long sessions over several weeks about the best way to improve the nation’s power supply in the safest and most cost effective way. So, while there is speculation, Nigerians will not know definitively until then who is on the list. Staff, Gen. Oladipo Diya, former Senate President, Joseph Wayas, and Service chiefs.

Over the last four months, he has been dealing directly with the top civil servants, who run the ministries.

Elected on a pledge to tackle corruption in Nigeria, Buhari has vowed to overhaul the NNPC which a year ago was accused of failing to remit $20 billion (18 billion euros) in revenue to the central bank.

Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State in his anniversary message said Nigeria had started to reclaim her lost glory in the comity of nations since President Muhammadu Buhari took the reins of governance. There is no cause to be anxious.

Vetting of candidates has been seen as delaying his nomination of ministers.

The army, backed up by a regional task force, has managed to regain northern territories from the Islamist Boko Haram which has killed thousands of people and displaced 1.5 million in a six-year-old insurgency.

He noted that Nigeria is now well positioned with the administration of President Buhari for both recognition and active participation in global politics in manner that would likely elicit positive attention from the worldwide community.

AT least seven people were killed and at least 10 wounded when a auto bomb exploded near a heavily-guarded complex housing the offices of Somalia ” s president…

He noted that at an early stage, the Federal Government addressed the issue of salary arrears in many states, a situation, he said, was capable of degenerating into social unrest.