Former presidential aide Laolu Akande has drummed support for the Minister of Art, Culture, and Creative Economy, Hannatu Musawa.
According to Akande, Musawa is a “very bright and innovative person” capable of bringing innovative ideas that will take the Ministry to greater heights.
Akande’s comments come on the heels of accusations from the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, which had accused the Minister of Art, Culture, and Creative Economy, Musawa, of serving as a minister while undertaking the one-year mandatory National Youth Service Corps scheme.
In a statement on Thursday, the group alleged that years ago, Musawa abandoned her NYSC in Ebonyi State but later appeared interested in completing it.
The group further alleged that Musawa was mobilized this year and got posted to a law firm in Abuja as her place of primary assignment [PPA] before her appointment as minister.
The group had urged the NYSC to compel Musawa to focus on either her national youth service or the ministerial appointment.
However, while responding to questions in an interview on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Friday, Akande, the former spokesperson to the former Vice President of Nigeria, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, stated that “if we are able to overlook some of these issues, she’s clearly a very bright and innovative person… there are clearly a lot of expectations that somebody like her might bring new thinking to the government.
“She comes with quite a formidable profile for the job, and I think that is something good to know.”
Speaking on the possibilities of conflicts and tension among ministers in the course of carrying out their duties, Akanded stated that “what we must understand is that the federal executive council is the president’s court; it is what the president wants in terms of the setting and in terms of the arrangement that is going to prevail”.
Making reference to Lagos State, Akande noted that “I understand that in Lagos State, you have a situation where commissioners and special advisers are members of the executive council.
“In the Federal Government, from my experience and what we have known, the members of the federal executive council are only cabinet-rank ministers, but noting stops the president, for instance, from saying that I want even special advisers to sit in council. There are two that are always sitting there anyway. The special adviser on media and publicity and the national security adviser are always sitting in the meetings of the FEC, but the president can even add more.
“My point is that we have a coordinating minister of the economy, Mr. Wale Edun, who is going to supervise other ministries that have to do with the economy, including one that is managed by a former governor. Guess what? That is what the president wants, so it is the president’s call, and the president has taken all of these, I imagine, into consideration when he picks people, and I think he is more concerned about getting the job done and using the people he understands to have the overall competence in that area.”
