Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari may not name a cabinet until September\u00a0as he takes time to find credible ministers and build a government\u00a0untainted by the corruption of the past, a senior official and party\u00a0sources said.<\/p>\n
Buhari swept to power in March on an anti-graft ticket and was sworn in on\u00a0May 29 but critics are starting to ask why ministers for Africa’s biggest\u00a0economy have yet to be unveiled a month after he came into power.<\/p>\n
His defeat of incumbent Goodluck Jonathan was seen as a positive step for\u00a0Africa’s top oil producer, given the corruption scandals that have\u00a0blighted previous administrations.<\/p>\n
But Nigeria’s financial markets are starting to suffer as the\u00a0post-election euphoria fades and the lack of a cabinet leaves investors\u00a0waiting in vain for policy direction on issues as important as the\u00a0currency and petroleum investment.<\/p>\n
“It will take the next two months before ministers can come on board.\u00a0Bringing them in now may disrupt the clean-up going on. So Nigerians just\u00a0have to be patient,” presidential media adviser Garba Shehu told Reuters.\u00a0“We need to clean up the mess everywhere before the ministers can come.”<\/p>\n
Buhari’s anti-corruption drive has been at the heart of his moves so far,\u00a0alongside efforts to establish a military force with Cameroon, Chad and\u00a0Niger to fight the six-year Boko Haram Islamist insurgency in the\u00a0northeast.<\/p>\n
While Buhari has not named any ministers, he dissolved the board of the\u00a0Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) last week and the state oil\u00a0firm’s management may be next to go.<\/p>\n
The National Economic Council, a presidential advisory group that met this\u00a0week for the first time since Buhari was inaugurated, said the NNPC had\u00a0kept nearly half Nigeria’s oil revenues from 2012 to May 2015 and promised\u00a0an investigation.<\/p>\n
Parliament also agreed last week to investigate contracts between the NNPC\u00a0and oil trading houses, in which crude was swapped for refined fuel\u00a0products, on the grounds that there was a gap between the value of the oil\u00a0delivered and fuel received.<\/p>\n
“President Buhari’s cabinet won’t be ready until early September because\u00a0he is not in a hurry,” a senior member of his All Progressives Congress\u00a0(APC) party said. “He is just being meticulous so that he can bring in\u00a0credible and competent hands.”<\/p>\n
However, some APC insiders say a power struggle between Buhari and party\u00a0leader Bola Tinubu, a former Lagos state governor and one of Nigeria’s\u00a0most formidable political godfathers, lies behind the delays.<\/p>\n
The opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) said it was concerned\u00a0Buhari had not made key appointments and the first month of his tenure had\u00a0been “all motion, no movement”.<\/p>\n
Yvonne Mhango, sub-Saharan Africa economist at Renaissance Capital, said\u00a0the uncertainty was exacerbating jitters about the outlook for an economy\u00a0battered by depressed oil prices.<\/p>\n
“We hope we’ll get clarity on what sort of policies we should expect and\u00a0investors can make decisions on the back of that,” Mhango said.\u00a0Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari may not name a cabinet until September\u00a0as he takes time to find credible ministers and build a government\u00a0untainted by the corruption of the past, a senior…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39810,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n