FG allegedly under pressure to appoint only APC ministers as party youths tackle Lawan over choice of aides

President Muhammadu Buhari may have acceded to the alleged request of the Comrade Adams Oshiomhole-led National Working Committee (NWC) to only pick ministers with leanings to the All Progressives Congress (APC), according to investigation.

It was gathered that the decision may have been informed by the need to avert the 2015 incident where the president picked his cabinet without recourse to the political party.

A chieftain, who craved anonymity, yesterday said: “Rest assured that the mistake of 2015 where the real party men were sidelined would not happen again. We have learnt our lessons. The party is deeply involved in the selection process.

“I won’t tell you the criteria we are using but all I know is that virtually all of them would not be strange faces to us. Those who worked for the victory of the party would not suffer in vain this time around.”

Efforts to reach the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Malam Lanre Issa-Onilu, for comments were futile.

This comes as the party’s youths under the aegis of Conference by APC Stakeholders yesterday faulted Senate President Ahmed Law over the appointment of his personal aides.

Spokesperson of the group, Mr. Abu Andrew, described his choices as heartbreaking and disappointing, alleging that those who made the list were known “antagonists and acerbic critics of President Muhammadu Buhari and Lawan himself.”

He urged the number three citizen to retrace his steps by appointing those who worked assiduously not only for his emergence but also for the success of the APC at the last polls.

The youths maintained: “No doubt, the appointments are glaring reward for people who have not only insulted the person of President Muhammadu Buhari but also severally maligned the integrity of the office he occupies.

“Even for supporting Senator Lawan to be Senate President, these new appointees   did not spare the President. Now that Senator Lawan has achieved his ambition, it is disheartening to see that the very people he puts forward as beneficiaries of his new position are those who condemned and vilified those who supported him to attain the position in the first place.

“The appointments made by Senate President Lawan so far have made every rational youth of APC who championed the campaign for his Senate presidency to question their choice.”

It added: “When the Senate President we all supported with our hearts and worked for wholeheartedly begins to compensate enemies of the government, those of the party and indeed those of the same President Buhari who endured insults for backing him for the position, then the devil himself must be celebrated for doing a good job in turning a Senate President we brought in against us so soon and so fast.”