Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua is again set to carry out a cabinet reshuffle to meet
new challenges, an aide to the President said on Sunday.
"It stands to reason that there will be a reshuffle because the existing structure has changed such that there are some ministers who currently have no Ministry," Olusegun Adeniyi, Special Adviser to the President on Communication and Presidency spokesman, said in Abuja, the capital city of the country.
According to Channels TV news report on Sunday, Adeniyi told reporters that the reshuffle had become more expedient with the change in the structure of the federal executive council, which hesaid, had left some ministers with no portfolios and some ministries without ministers.
He said the president had held Saturday sessions with all
the ministers, permanent secretaries, directors and heads of departments to defend government policies and programmes.
The presidential spokesman said the president spent as much as five hours with some of the ministers, adding that he now had firsthand knowledge of their abilities and capabilities.
"I can assure you that by now, he knows the strength
and weaknesses of everyone of them (ministers)," he said.
He added that the reshuffle could have taken place at the inception of the administration because some people noticed pitfalls in operational effectiveness but that it had to be suspended.
"The President decided that there was no point discarding
an idea that had not been tested, arguing that if it ended up not working, as it has now happened, there would be useful lessons to learn," he said
Adeniyi said that once the reshuffle was concluded, the President would give the Ministers specific targets and timelines for delivery, saying that the period would range from one year to two-and-a-half years.