President Bola Tinubu yesterday announced a minister of Niger Delta Development and effects minor amendments to ministry nomenclature and portfolio allocation.
Recall that the president had recently named 45 ministers but there was none for the Niger Delta Affairs.
The development fueled the speculation that the ministry had been scrapped.
Consequently, the board of trustees of the Pan-Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) took up the gauntlet and cautioned that “any misguided step toward scrapping or submerging the ministry will create an unfavourable environment with adverse consequences.”
The forum said in a communiqué signed by its national leader and the chairman, Messrs Edwin Clark and Emmanuel Ibok Essien that the ministry was a creation of late President Umaru Yar’Adua and sustained by the successive administrations of President Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari.
The group insisted that the ministry should continue to function and urged the president to nominate a minister for it.
Apparently sensing danger, the president approved the redeployment of Mr Abubakar Momoh from the federal ministry of youth to the federal ministry of Niger Delta Development.
He said the federal ministry of youth would be re-assigned to a minister-designate soon.
The president also reshuffled the ministers assigned to the federal ministries of transportation, interior, and marine and blue economy.
In the new arrangement, Mr Adegboyega Oyetola was redeployed as the minister of marine and blue economy.
Mr Bunmi Tunji-Ojo was redeployed as the minister of interior while Mr Sa’idu Alkali became the new minister of transportation
Furthermore, both ministers of state in the oil and gas sector are now domiciled in the federal ministry of petroleum resources with Mr Heineken Lokpobiri as the minister of state (oil), petroleum resources and Mr Ekperipe Ekpo as minister of state (gas), petroleum resources.
The president also approved the renaming of the federal ministry of environment and ecological management as the federal ministry of environment.
The aforementioned changes had already taken effect.
