By; TANKO YUSUF
More than half of the Presidential aides reportedly sacked in the VP Wing of
the Buhari Presidency are donor funded including donors from well known
international development agencies from the US and the UK, investigations have
revealed.
The attempted sack which contravened presidential directive and is being
pushed by a senior official in the President’s office is now reportedly facing
scrutiny.
This is raising fresh suspicions regarding the actual motivation behind the
disengagement of the aides after it was officially reported that the aides were
removed to cut down on government’s expenses.
Several government sources over the weekend disclosed in a series of
interactions on the ongoing crisis in the Presidency that “what is happening in
the villa is an attempt by the President’s Chief of Staff to grab power and
tussle with the VP who is seen as a trusted and reliable supporter of the
President and whose influence is causing the cabal around the president
sleepless nights especially because of his rising profile ahead of 2023.”
Besides, the claim that VP’s office is too large, with the number of aides
put at over 80 in some reports, has also been debunked by officials of some of
the donor agencies. The argument according to some of those sources is that the
quantum and weight of the programmes being implemented in the office demands
quite an even larger staff strength if that were possible.
One of the sources put it this way: “Take the Social Investment Programmes
for instance, the budget is N500 billion naira, covering NPower job Programmes
with half a million graduates involved; Homegrown School Feeding with about 10
million pupils in 33 States, and others. What kind of staff strength do you
need to run such Programmes with half a trillion Naira budget?“
Another official said “ for context, just compare the budget of a State
govt, say Kano, a very big State which budgeted N246B last year. Kano has
151,000 staff strength with a budget that is less than half of the SIP’s N500B.
Pls add after Kano that Oyo which has a budget of about N267B last year also
retains a staff strength of 35,700. So how many people are there in the entire
office of the Vice President where all the SIPs are being implemented? The real
reason the cabal is going after the staff in the VP’S office is anything but
reasonable by any stretch of the imagination.”
The source added that there are other functions the VP performs statutorily
and constitutionally like the National Economic Council, NEC, that composes all
State governors and the Central Bank Governor, the only constitutional venue
where States and the Federal Government interact on a whole lot of issues.
Queried the source “What about supervising the Niger Delta Power Holding
Company, with at least 10 power plants across the country?”
In addition the source explained that it is also the VP’S office through the
National Council on Privatization and the BPE, that supervises FG’s interests
and shares in all the Discos in the country. Besides, there are several other
agencies like NEMA, DMO, NIPSS, Border Communities agency, Boundary Commission
and several others that are under the VP’S office that require effective
supervision.
Continuing, the source said the few people in the VP’S office doing the SIPS
and other reform Programmes like PEBEC have actually been attracting
continental and global recognitions for the Buhari presidency including from
the World Bank, AfDB and many local awards. The source went further, that
“Granted, these two programs had matured after successful incubation by the
Office of the Vice President, the only fair thing to do on moving the core team
to the Ministry structure was not to change a winning team but you deploy the
complement of their support staff to relevant ministries which is what the
President directed”.
Informed sources explained that while the aides were all approved by the
President in August this year, he had also approved the number of those who
will work in the Presidential Villa as different from those deployed to work in
other ministries outside the villa. That team of Vice President’s aides remain
in place and there is no contention about their status despite several failed
attempts by the power grabbers to withdraw their privilege, our source said.
Another informed government source noted that “ there is the talk of some
reorganization in the Presidency, for instance all presidential staff working
on the Special Investment Programmes were transferred to the new ministry of
Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management & Social Development. But at the
same time, there are also other presidential aides who were moved to various
ministries from the OVP on the approval of the President very recently. It was
not about disengagement.”
The innate lack of human sympathy to even accommodate such team that
laboured hard for the government, both during the program incubation or the
elections, while some people went into the shadows and are now trying to sack
them against presidential directives is difficult to fathom. “How a President
that resisted reducing federal workforce during a recession, will approve
enabling the loss of livelihood for over thirty families who worked and
sacrificed for his election is hard to square”, said another affected aide who
spoke to us.
The source continued “It was therefore intriguing that the same set of
presidential aides so transferred in September after their appointments were
approved by the President are now to be disengaged altogether without any kind
of wrongdoings on their part.” The likely impact on their careers
notwithstanding.
It is believed in govt circles last night that the Chief of Staff Abba Kyari
has his own agenda working with the Secretary to the Government who reports
said he had piled pressure on to write disengagement letters for all the
presidential aides the President had approved to relocate outside the villa to
ministries relevant to their portfolios. It was said that blackmail on certain
matters to the SGF office is being used even when the office of the later is
constitutionally guaranteed, and the Chief of Staff is an unknown office in the
constitution.
One of the sources explained that this rash action and pressure on the SGF
office was done so as to Forestall a reversal which the President was expected
to do later in the month when back in Abuja. Indeed, other plans are said to be
cooking to justify the rash action when the President returns including false
analysis. “This explains why some of the names of the aides were leaked and
then Kyari asked one of the Presidential spokespersons to issue a statement on
Friday confirming the sacking of aides in VP offices who were meant only to be
relocated outside the villa.”
Tanko Yusuf is a Senior
Investigative Reporter based in Yola can be reached via tankoyusuf432@gmail.com
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