Senator Musiliu Obanikoro, Minister of State for Defence

Family, friends and well wishers of Senator Musiliu Obanikoro, the immediate past Nigeria’s Ambassador to South Africa, had gone to Abuja to celebrate the then minister in waiting; some had gone in chattered flights; others in buses with an expectation to celebrate an ‘incoming Minister of Aviation’ as speculated within the political circles. In fact, TLT gathered that some members of his inner caucus had started sharing certain positions and pecks in the ministry even when the expected baton was yet to be transferred to him from the just kicked out Stella Oduah. The ministerial appointee had been informed of his portfolio by the Presidency before the swearing in though, Senator Obanikoro kept the information close to his chest and allowed his followers to continue building castles in the air. On the day of swearing-in, his supporters could not hide their disappointment when they eventually knew that their benefactor has been appointed to be a minister in the Ministry of Defence, which success will be measured by its capability to stem the continuously rising tide of Boko Haram hostilities. To cap their disappointment with deep grief and sadness, Obanikoro has just been saddled with a second fiddle role as  “a mere Minister of State” (as uttered by one of his supporters at Aso Rock). As things are, Obanikoro will have to do more than explaining ‘why’ to his supporters whose hopes of ‘taking over the nation’s aviation industry’ appear to have been dashed in Abuja last week.