Buhari asks head of biggest private equity firm to join cabinet

Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari has asked Okechukwu Enyinna Enelamah, the head of the country’s biggest private equity firm to join his cabinet, Senate President Bukola Saraki said on Tuesday, as lawmakers started screening candidates for a long-awaited government.

Saraki did not specify a portfolio for Okechukwu Enyinna Enelamah, head of African Capital Alliance (ACA), as he read out a second batch of Buhari’s cabinet nominees that need to be approved by the upper house.

This brings to 37, the list of ministerial nominees sent by the President.

The new 16-man list includes former Chairman, Senate Committee on Water Resources in the 7th Senate, Heineken Lokpobiri; Vice Chancellor, University of Ibadan, Prof. Isaac Adewole; Kadija Bukar Abba Ibrahim; Claudius Omoleye Daramola and Prof. Anthony Anwuka.

Others are: Geoffrey Onyema; Brig. Gen. MM Dan-Ali (retired); Barr. James Ocholi; Zainab Ahmed;  Muhammadu Bello; Mustapha Baba Shehuri; Aisha Abubakar; Adamu Adamu; Pastor Usani Usani Uguru and Abubakar Bwari Bawa.

Chairman, Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions, Senator Samuel Anyanwu (PDP, Imo East), cleared a ministerial nominee, Amina Mohammed for screening, explaining that the report on another ministerial nominee and former Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi was not ready.

Enelamah, a former Goldman Sachs banker, is a founder and chief executive of ACA, which has raised over $750 million in managed funds since its inception in 1997.

Buhari was elected in March on a campaign to “fix” Africa’s top oil exporter, which is gripped by corruption and mismanagement, but has come under fire for being slow to name a cabinet while the economy is hammered by a plunge in oil prices.

Buhari will disclose the cabinet portfolios only once the upper house approves his list. He had submitted a first batch with 21 names to the Senate earlier this month and has added an extra 15 to fulfil the constitutional need for a minister from each of Nigeria’s 36 states.

Among other technocrats nominated by Buhari is Aisha Abubakar, a banker who until recently headed the Abuja Enterprise Agency, a government body to help smaller firms, Saraki said.

Buhari, a former military ruler, had already asked Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, head of state oil firm NNPC, to join his cabinet. The former Exxon-Mobil manager is expected to become junior oil minister as Buhari wants to keep the oil minister portfolio for himself.

Those screened yesterday include: Senator Udoma Udo Udoma; former Ekiti State Governor, John Kayode Fayemi; ex-PDP National Chairman, Audu Ogbeh and one-time governor of Abia State, Ogbonnaya Onu.

Others screened include: former Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Abdulrahman Dambazau (rtd); National Publicity Secretary of APC, Lai Mohammed; Special Adviser to UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, on post-2015 Development Planning, Amina Mohammed; Suleiman Adamu and Ibrahim Jibril.

The exercise, which started at 11:04am, ended at 5:13pm.

The nominees answered questions on a number of national issues including  agriculture, education, foreign policy, politics, security, health and other critical sectors of the economy.

They unanimous agreed that the Nigerian economy is in bad shape and promised to bring their wealth of experience in their various fields to help the administration of Muhammadu Buhari galvanise the economy.

They therefore called for diversification of the nation’s economy amidst dwindling oil prices.

However, since portfolios were not attached to the names, senators asked questions about possible portfolio of the ministers based on their CVs.