ABUJA  – The All Progressives Con­gress (APC) National Work­ing Committee (NWC) has justified the 48 ministerial nominations sent to the Senate by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for confir­mation, saying the presi­dent acted within the ambit of the constitution and his executive prerogative.

Senator Ajibola Bashiru, National Secretary of the party, made the clarifica­tion while fielding report­ers’ questions at the end of the maiden meeting of the Abdullahi Ganduje-led NWC of the party on Tues­day in Abuja.

The number of the min­isterial nominees have been criticised as bogus, un­wieldy and fell short of the belt-tightening narrative the administration appears to be pushing forward as the nation’s economy and cur­rency wobble along.

Critics have also chal­lenged the decision of the president to send addition­al nominees for some of the states and political zones such that those states and geopolitical zones tilted the intendment of the consti­tution in favour of equity, balance and fairness.

Bashiru, however, not­ed that the president’s nominations are in conso­nance with the constitution which allows him to make 37 nominations per state and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). The rest, he said, is in accord with executive prerogative to make more nominations provided no constitutional provisions is violated.

“On the issue of minis­terial nominees, opinion is free, heterogeneous in a democratic society. So that should be made very clear. By the constitution of Nigeria, every state is expected to have a minis­terial nominee at least. For the first time, the president appointed a nominee from the FCT for which the FCT people where happy.

“So, we have mandato­ry, minimum of 37 min­isters by constitutional provisions, so adding an additional 10 on, I think it is prerogative of the exec­utive. Section 5 of the con­stitution is clear that the president is vested with ex­ecutive powers, for which he may exercise directly, personally or through ministers that he has ap­pointed.

“So, that said, anybody is free to make comments as to the size of the ministers and as to the compositions of the ministers. And that essentially is with the pre­rogative of the president, having regard to Section 5 of the constitution of Nige­ria, and mind you Section 1(1) of the constitution of Nigeria says Nigeria shall be governed in accordance with the constitution. So, the president has not done anything that is outside the confines of the consti­tution”.

On the concluded NWC meeting, he said the main agenda was the reposition­ing of the party, ensuring that all organs of the party from ward to national lev­els function optimally.

“We discussed on the progress of our party, we also deliberated on im­proving the internal mech­anisms or processes of our party.

“The agenda is to re­position our party to sup­port the administration of President Bola Tinubu, our governors and the Na­tional Assembly members, and also to reposition our party to win all elections henceforth and of course, the need to strengthen the three wings of our party, the youth, women and peo­ple with disability wings.

“The meetings of the NWC will be regular and there will also be regular briefings of the press as to what the NWC committee is doing.

“We are going to inter­face with the leadership of our party at the national, state and zonal levels to en­sure that we have a re-ener­gise the party whose activi­ties are not only limited to when elections are done.”

Adding his voice, Spokesman of the party, Mr. Felix Morka, disclosed that the maiden NWC meet­ing under Ganduje deliber­ated among other things, on the setting of campaign council of the forthcoming off season elections in Imo, Bayelsa and Kogi states.

“We did go into discus­sion about how to fashion the national campaign councils for each of the states, for each of the states also will have to put together their own state campaign councils.

“So we did look at the criteria for bringing peo­ple together to populate the council in order to provide the needed support to the state campaign councils and to energise the capital of the party to ensure that, come the election we will prevail in winning those states for our party.

“We also dealt with mat­ters regarding the finances of the party, with our new Chairman and Secretary. It was important to bring them up to date with where we are with our finances as a party so that they can be on the same page with those of us who have been here.

“It was important we update them as senior of­ficers of the party so they will know how effectively to play their role.

“We did discuss as well some internal matters, issues of systems, how to improve our internal pro­cesses to ensure that we continue to be effective and efficient, not as in the use of our resources but also in the use of our time and also the question of prioritising what we do and how we do them.

“The national secretary did come up with very use­ful suggestions which was discussed and again to un­derscore the commitment of the new leadership of the party to not just win­ning elections, as we poise to do with the campaign councils but also in ensur­ing that our internal mech­anisms are reviewed and made even more efficient.