The much-awaited cabinet reshuffle of President Bola Tinubu has taken off with the scrapping of Niger Delta Ministry and the Ministry of Sports Development.
Bayo Onanuga, Presidential spokesman, announced this on Wednesday.
“There will now be a ministry of regional development to oversee all the regional development commissions, such as Niger Delta Development Commission, North West Development Commission, South West Development Commission , North East Development Commission.”
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“The National Sports Commission will take over the role of the Ministry of Sports,” Onanuga said.
He said the decisions were taken at the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting on Wednesday.
Onanuga added that the president has also approved the merger of the Ministry of Tourism with the Ministry of Culture and Creative Economy.
It is unclear what the fate of Abubakar Momoh, former Niger Delta Affairs Minister, and John Enoh, former sports minister, is.
Additionally, details of the merger are still being awaited at the time of this report as it has not been stated if Hannatu Musawa, culture minister, would be in charge of the merged ministry or Lola Ade-John, tourism minister would oversee the ministry.
Tinubu has been under intense pressure to reshuffle his cabinet.
Last month, Onanuga had announced that cabinet reshuffle was imminent.
Addressing a press conference at the State House in Abuja on Wednesday, Onanuga had lamented that so much was being done, but Nigerians were not aware.
He had said, “The President has expressed his desire to reshuffle his cabinet and he will do it. I don’t know whether he wants to do it before October first and he will surely do it. That is what I will say, but he has not given us any timeline.”
Speaking on the performance of the present administration, Onanuga said, “The President has given an order to all his ministers at the last Federal Executive Council meeting to go out there and speak about the activities of his administration.
“Some of them have been media shy, television shy, radio shy, and he wants them to overcome all that and go out there and speak about what they have been doing.
“Because the feeling out there is that the government is not doing enough and the government has been doing a lot. And it is up to them to go out there and blow their own trumpet. They should go out there and talk about what their ministries have been doing.”
