… Leaves post of substantive minister of Petroleum vacant
Ahead of the official swearing-in of the newly appointed minister today, President Bola Tinubu has announced a new minister-designate for Niger Delta Development and directed minor amendments to ministry nomenclature and portfolio allocation.
This is contained in a statement on Sunday by Mr. Ajuri Ngelale, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, in Abuja.
In the new move, the president approved the redeployment of Abubakar Momoh from the Federal Ministry of Youth to the Federal Ministry of Niger Delta Development.
The Federal Ministry of Youth is to be reassigned to a minister-designate soon.
The ministers-designate allocated to the Federal Ministries of Transportation, Interior, and Marine & Blue Economy has been reshuffled as follows:
(A) Adegboyega Oyetola is redeployed as the Minister of Marine & Blue Economy
(B) Bunmi Tunji-Ojo is redeployed as the Minister of the Interior
(C) Hon. Sa’idu Alkali is redeployed as the Minister of Transportation
Recall that Oyetola was earlier assigned to Transportation, Tunji-Ojo to Marine & Blue Economy while Alkali had Interior.
Furthermore, both Ministers of State in the Oil & Gas sector are now domiciled in the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources with the following designations:
(i) Sen. Heineken Lokpobiri is the Minister of State (Oil), Petroleum Resources
(ii) Hon. Ekperipe Ekpo is the Minister of State (Gas), Petroleum Resources
The portfolios of the two ministers are designated as Ministers of State, Gas Resources and Minister of State, Petroleum Resources.
The statement was silent on who the substantive minister of Petroleum Resources is. This leave the public to believe that the President might have reserved the post for himself just like his predecessor Buhari held the post for eight years.
The president also approves the renaming of the Federal Ministry of Environment and Ecological Management as the Federal Ministry of Environment.
That was the portfolio assigned to Kaduna State but no person is yet to be assigned to it.
The changes take immediate effect just as all the ministers-designate takes their oath of office today.