Following the sudden sack of 26 heads of agencies and parastatals yesterday by the Buhari-led Federal Government, leaders and other members of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) have begun intense lobby for top positions in those agencies.
Investigations have revealed that this restive group of expectant APC members were those behind recent campaigns in the media on the urgent need to sack these appointees when they felt that President Bahari was too cautious in sacking agency heads appointed by the last administration.
In those sponsored reports published in The Punch last month and a few other tabloids, President Buhari was tacitly accused of “punishing” APC members and working against the possibility of the party retaining power in 2019.
READ ALSO Buhari Fires 26 Heads of Agencies, Parastatals
A Lagos based APC chieftain is reported to have said, “Since President Buhari took over on May 29, 2015 he has not really rewarded core APC members. Our people who worked so hard and spent money on Buhari’s campaign are languishing. Most of the people that were being appointed by the President were either northerners or members of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change and those who decamped recently from PDP. Some of them even worked for Jonathan’s re-election team.”
It was also discovered that were strong efforts to link the recent announcement that office holders in the past administration led by Goodluck Jonathan looted at least N11.11 trillion (or $55.68 billion at N199.5 to a dollar) of public funds to some of the agencies that lost their leaders.
Some insiders in the presidency feel the final straw that led to the sack of these 26 agency heads was the allegation that some of them were “moles” that deliberately “padded” their 2016 budget to embarrass the APC government.
However, the eventual exit of these heads of agencies has triggered huge shuffling of activities some APC members feel will enhance their fortunes. A popular Pastor of a top Pentecostal church in Lagos who is a close confidant of President Buhari revealed that he has so far received about 300 resumes of those who want him to facilitate appointments. With such massive and intense lobbying, only a few are likely to smile at the end of the day.
