President
Goodluck Jonathan may have placed the embattled Minister of Aviation,
Ms. Stella Oduah, on “tactical suspension,” findings by The PUNCH have revealed.
A reliable Presidency source said
Jonathan decided on the “tactical suspension,” hours before the signing
of the Bilateral Air Service Agreement between Nigeria and Israel on
Monday.
The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of
Aviation, Mr. George Ossi, had on October 24 told the House of
Representatives Committee on Aviation that Oduah led a Nigerian
delegation to Israel to sign the BASA.
The House committee is probing the
purchase of two bulletproof cars at a whopping N255m price by the
Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority for the minister.
Our source explained that it was the
‘tactical suspension’ that made Jonathan to direct the Minister of
State (1) for Foreign Affairs , Prof. Viola Onwuliri, to sign the
agreement instead of Oduah.
When asked by one of our correspondents
what ‘tactical suspension’ meant, he said, “Oduah will not be allowed
to attend public functions that will have the President in attendance
until the three-member committee set up to investigate the matter
turns in its report.”
The source, who said he did not know
whether the “tactical suspension” order had been formally communicated
to the minister, stated that the step became necessary in order to
dissuade Nigerians who hold the opinion that the President was
shielding Oduah.
In what seemed a corroboration of the
“tactical suspension,” the Special Adviser to the President on
Political Matters, Mr. Ahmed Gulak, insisted that Jonathan would not
associate with or shield anybody found to be corrupt.
He insisted during an interview with
one of our correspondents on Tuesday, that the minister did not travel
to Israel on the entourage of the President.
“Did you see them (Jonathan and the
minister) together in Israel? The President will not associate or shield
anybody found to be corrupt. That is why he set up that panel because
he will not want to act based on media reports,” Gulak said.
Shortly before our source and Gulak
spoke, the Presidency said the BASA was signed by Onwuliri because
it was a matter bordering on foreign affairs.
The Special Adviser to the President on
Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, in an exclusive telephone
interview with one of our correspondents, argued that there was no
politics involved in Onwuliri signing the agreement on behalf of the
government.
He said Nigerians should not reduce the
matter to “the politics of political appointees who are all ultimately
birds of passage.”
The President’s spokesman said Oduah
did not only attend the signing ceremony but was also involved in
framing the technical details of, and in preparing the agreement along
with her Israeli counterpart.
He said it was when that was done, that the Foreign Ministries moved in at the level of G2 diplomacy.
Abati added, “The groundwork (for the
agreement) was done by the Ministry of Aviation hence the involvement of
the Aviation Minister, but this being a country-to-country agreement,
more or less a treaty, it had to be signed by the Foreign Affairs
Minister.
“It is also the convention in diplomacy
to pair ministers. The Israelis brought their Deputy Foreign Affairs
Minister, so we did the same. There was no politics involved and there
is no doubt that it is within the provenance of the Foreign Ministry to
sign agreements on behalf of the country.
“Let me add that BASA is about countries entering into an agreement.
PUNCH
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