President Muhammadu Buhari has submitted names of his ministerial nominees to the Senate, presidency sources told Daily Trust last night.
Special Adviser to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Senator Ita Enang, submitted the names to the upper chamber yesterday, the sources said on condition of anonymity. Nigerians have been waiting since May 29 for Buhari to appoint his ministers, but the President had asked them to be patient saying he needed time to assemble the best people into the ministerial positions.

The delay had drawn a lot of criticism and endless speculations among Nigerians.

Many Senators contacted yesterday about the nominees told Daily Trust they would prefer not to comment since they did not know the content of the message delivered by Senator Enang.

But sources suggested yesterday that those likely to make it into Buhari’s cabinet are those that have been seen regularly with him in recent weeks, either in Nigeria or on his foreign trips.

“Going by that postulation,’ the sources said, “one can safely say that former Ekiti state governor Kayode Fayemi would make it.”
One of our sources said those who could make it are former Chief of Army Staff, Abdurrahman Dambazau, former CBN governor Charles Soludo, and three former governors from the south.

A former House of Representatives member, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, former governor of Osun State, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, are among those believed to be included in the list of nominees. Oyinlola was said to have been nominated by former President Olusegun Obasanjo. He was a former national secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who later decamped to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

“Whatever the case everything will be clear as the Senate resumes sitting today,” the source said.

Daily Trust reports that Buhari had at various times promised to name his cabinet in September.