Nigeria: President Buhari accepts Kemi Adeosun’s resignation as Minister of Finance

By Bashir Adefaka and Olanrewaju Awosanya

“Allusion has been made to the administration served by Diezani Allison-Madueka, adding that if the corruption of high magnitude raised against her during the over five years she was Minister of Petroleum Resources and Chairman Board of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) had been given necessary attention by the president she served, her case and that of the country would not be as worse as they became when, upon leaving office, they had plunged the country into recession before President Buhari with concerted effort of Kemi Adeosun and other economy players took the country out of the unfortunate recession.  The DEFENDER had gathered from reactions it received following news of Adeosun’s resignation on Friday.”

Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari has accepted the resignation of the country’s Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun.

Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Chief Femi Adesina, made this known in a statement he issued in Abuja on Friday.

According to the statement, President Buhari thanked Adeosun for her services to the nation and wished her well in her future pursuits.

He then directed also the approval “that the Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, should oversee the Ministry of Finance with effect from today”, Adesina stated in the statement and attached copy of content of Mrs Kemi Adeosun’s letter of resignation, which laid credence to what had earlier trended on social media and therefore was dismissed as rumour.

Mrs Adeosun is believed to have resigned her appointment from the highest coordinating office of the nation’s economy by way of the “honourable thing” to enable her address the issue of National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) exemption of service certificate that has rocked her personality for over sometimes now.

Although painful, the minister’s action quitting on the basis of the yet unclear allegation of certificate scandal will for a long time add to the both her honour and the honour of the Nigeria’s President, Muhammadu Buhari, his All Progressives Congress (APC)-led Federal Government and that of the Ogun State community where she represents in the cabinet.

In the over 19 years of the Fourth Republic, Buhari-led APC Administration has been the first time a public officer enmeshed in critical allegation will voluntarily quit as against in the past when a president would defend such officer, record shows.

Allusion has been made to the administration served by Diezani Allison-Madueka, adding that if the corruption of high magnitude raised against her during the over five years she was Minister of Petroleum Resources and Chairman Board of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) had been given necessary attention by the president she served, her case and that of the country would not be as worse as they became when, upon leaving office, they had plunged the country into recession before President Buhari with concerted effort of Kemi Adeosun and other economy players took the country out of the unfortunate recession. The DEFENDER had gathered from reactions it received following news of Adeosun’s resignation on Friday.

Adeosun will be remembered by history of Nigeria’s economy as Nigeria’s Honourable Minister of Finance, whose time the covered up economy’s collapse resulting from the Nigeria inherited by the government she served to say the nation was “technically in recessing” but who always had her sleeves rolled up in, along with other players, taking the country out of the recession.

Although she had her own share of usual controversies that usual trail public officer in a nation with the complexity of the type of Nigeria’s but her successes are believed to be more than her failures, we gathered.