President Muhammadu Buhari has removed the Secretary to the Government of the Federation Babachir Lawal as chairman of the presidential committee on the reconstitution of federal government boards of parastatals, agencies and commissions.

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has been appointed to replace Lawal.

The chairman of the National Drugs Law Enforcement Agencies (NDLEA) Muhammad Mustapha Abdallah was also appointed tohead the secretariat of the committee at the instance of the vice president, a source said.

“The SGF is no longer in charge of that responsibility, for obvious reasons,” one of the sources said.

The Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, has recently queried the SGF over alleged fraud at the Presidential Initiative on North East (PINE).

The Senate ad-hoc committee on mounting crisis of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the Northeast had accused the SGF of several misdeeds including failing to account for N2.5 billion PINE funds. The SGF had however denied all the allegations.

d even sitting governors, especially in APC states were not consulted.”

In order to address the lingering issues, the Osinbajo-led committee held their first meeting on November 14, 2015 at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.

Thereafter, it was gathered that six geopolitical zones nominated a governor to represent them during subsequent brainstorming.

The governors reportedly nominated a representative thus: Jibrilla Bindow (northeast), Atiku Bagudu (northwest), Simon Lalong (northcentral), Rochas Okorocha (southeast), Adams Oshiomhole (south-south), and Akinwumi Ambode (southwest).

A source from Bauchi state said in one of the meetings, all the APC governors were given a slot to nominate three people to be appointed chairmen of boards and 20 others as members.

This, he said, was besides the slot given to ministers and other top APC members, in addition to those that would be selected by the president himself.

“In our state for instance, the governor had already nominated three people from the three senatorial districts for chairmanship and has also given one slot of membership to all the 20 local government areas in the state,” the source said.

But an alleged compromise by the committee was said to have prompted president Buhari to reject the first report submitted by the SGF-led committee at that time.

“Most people of the party felt that they have not been carried along. I know that many of them complain every day. They want board appointments released so that there will be calm. The people from the southeast said they have not been appointed; the people from the northeast and even from the northwest where Mr. President comes from said that they have not been appointed,” he said.

In the same vein, the wife of the president, Aisha Buhari, in a widely publicised interview with the Hausa Service of the BBC last year, said APC members who worked for her husband’s election had been neglected.

Mrs Buhari had also stated that the president had been hijacked by a cabal that did not work for his success.

On October 24, last year, state governors elected on the platform of the APC expressed their displeasure on how they were being sidelined in the choice of those being appointed from their states by President Buhari.

The governors protested to President Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at a meeting held at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa, Abuja. Plateau State Governor Simon Lalong confirmed this to State House after the meeting, saying Buhari had asked governors who had complaints to put them in writing while pledging to look into them.

“So, all the states that have complaints are going to put them into writing and the President promised that he is going to look into it,” the governor had told journalists at that time.

President Buhari is expected to make appointments into no fewer than 500 parastatals.

APC members from across the states are grumbling, saying most of the seats are currently occupied by PDP members appointed by ex-president Goodluck Jonathan.

The spokesman of the vice president, Laolu Akande declined comment when contacted yesterday. He simply said: “It is the president that makes appointments.”

A presidential aide also told our correspondent yesterday that the last time he checked, Lawal was the one handling the issue of board appointments.

The aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he did not know why or whether the responsibility was taken away from the SGF at all.

A top government official told CEOAFRICA source last night that the SGF’s committee on the board appointments had finished its job as dictated in the mandate setting it up and has submitted its report.

“I am not denying the protests by some individuals and groups, but the committee of the SGF has completed its assignment and the Vice President’s committee is not a replacement for the SGF’s,” the officials who insisted on not being named said.

A committee headed by Osinbajo to review the appointments into the Governing Board of agencies is not an indictment of the SGF