Senators from the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) agreed a secret deal with ministerial nominees Babatunde Fashola and Kayode Fayemi to give them a free pass at the confirmation hearings.
Fashola and Fayemi, of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and former governors of Lagos and Ekiti States, were no longer in good terms with their political mentor and APC chieftain Bola Tinubu.
Tinubu was dead against their nomination and had preferred candidates for the ministerial slots from Lagos and Ekiti, but his choices were ignored by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Fashola and Fayemi were expecting a tough ride from the PDP senators, with allegations of corruption, petitions and claims that they both mismanaged their states, leaving their successors with mountains of debt.
But in a secret meeting with PDP senators, a source said that Fashola and Fayemi argued that if they didn’t scale through the confirmation, it would enhance Tinubu’s influence in the party and the country. They held that by becoming ministers, the Tinubu “dynasty” would be undermined with the rise of two rivals from the southwest of the country – Tinubu’s base and stronghold.
This proposition was like music to PDP ears. So when Fashola and Fayemi appeared before the Senate, after some grandstanding with little substance from both, they were asked, with noisy support from PDP senators, to “take a bow and go”.
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