By Nasir Dambatta
Abuja
As the nation warms up to the presidential election billed for March 28, President Goodluck Jonathan is said to be set to effect a major cabinet reshuffle that may send some of his powerful ministers out of the cabinet, Aso Rock sources told this newspaper.
The president, who is currently on campaign outreach in some stronghold states of the opposition All Progressives Congress in the South-west, is likely to use the occasion of the swearing-in of new ministers recently cleared by the Senate, on his return to Abuja, to drop the bombshell.
Prominent among the ministers pencilled down for replacement is the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs Deziani Allison-Madueke, who the source described as “more of a liability than an asset”.
A reliable source privy to the goings-on said the move to effect the reshuffle is part of Jonathan’s “three-prong approach” to win more support as the campaign pulls into the home stretch.
The source said: “Two of the planks are already in full throttle; getting the anti-terror campaign to an irreversible point of victory and to throwing himself completely into the ground game. The latter has seen the president return to the South-west battle ground repeatedly. The VP is also all over the North.”
The two moves, according to the source, “have put Jonathan’s opponents on notice that he is ready for the battle and the steps have seen his popularity soaring up”.
The third and final leg of the strategic steps being taken by the president is said to be the last minute cabinet shake-up to shave off “the dormant and liability ministers”.
The president is said to be targeting ministers otherwise thought to be untouchables, for the imminent shake-up.
“The petroleum minister is said to be untouchable. You just wait and see if she survives the next shake-up.
“The president is aware that her presence has brought so much ill feeling to his government. The decision to let her go was taken in the first week of February,” the source explained.
Allison-Maduekwe, 55, joined the then President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua government from inception in 2007 as minister of transport. She was moved to the petroleum ministry in 2010 and has survived various shake-up exercises before now.
She is the current President of OPEC, elected at the 166th OPEC Ordinary meeting in Vienna on November 27, 2014.
Allison-Maduekwe, an architect, is the first female president of the oil cartel.