For Stella Oduah, the Minister of Aviation, these are uncertain times. With the submission of names of 12 ministerial nominees to the Senate for screening on Tuesday by President Goodluck Jonathan, Oduah’s fate continues to hang in the balance.
It is believed that the current effort aimed at reshuffling the cabinet is the opportunity the President has been waiting for in order to drop the controversial aviation minister from the Federal Executive Council.
In fact, a source in the Presidency had earlier informed TELL that President Goodluck Jonathan was very unhappy with the Minister and would have fired her but for the fact that he didn’t want to be seen to have reacted under pressure from the public. The source, therefore, said the President was only bidding his time before removing the Minister who he said deeply embarrassed him.
Oduah ran into stormy waters when information emerged that she had used her position as Aviation Minister to get the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, a parastatal under her ministry, to buy her two armoured BMW cars at N255m.
As a result of the scandal that followed that revelation, both arms of the National Assembly set up panels to investigate the issue and both returned verdicts indicting the Minister and calling for her removal.
Inspite of these factors, there are however those who argue that Oduah cannot be dropped by the President. Those in this school of thought argue that the President will find it difficult to remove Oduah because of the roles she played during his election in 2011.
The aviation minister was the financial director of the Goodluck Jonathan Campaign Organization and chairman of the Neighbour-to-Neighbour campaign initiative used to a great advantage by the President in winning the 2011 Presidential elections.
It is argued that since she served effectively as financial director of the President’s campaign organization, Jonathan may be looking forward to having her play a similar role in the run up to the 2015 Presidential elections and dropping her from the cabinet at this stage may be counter productive.
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