ATIKU & Alhassan: Options Before Buhari

Options Before Buhari
Political pundits have been wondering what options are available for the President in this current situation, particularly with the cacophony of voices calling for Alhassan’s sack or resignation.
There is also the emergence of groups drumming support for his re-election and those canvassing for Atiku’s presidential aspiration.

One of the options available to the President is to sack Alhassan, and send a strong message to those who might want to toe the same path among cabinet members. That option looks plausible because it could be hinged on the fact that it was necessary to put a stop to the distraction caused by Alhassan’s comments on 2019. But then it could also send an unintended political signal that the President is actually nursing a re-election bid and that he had to act swiftly against Alhassan before her comments that he promised to do only one term put his chances at risk.

Another option before the President is to retain Alhassan in his cabinet so as to avoid the unintended political signal that her sack at this time may send. That also has it own implication. It would validate her claim that the president promised to do only one term and send another unintended signal that he would not seek re-election, since she has threatened to resign if he chose to, consequently making 2019 presidential election a free-for-all race.

The third option before the President is to effect cabinet reshuffle. Interestingly, this has been on the card since the beginning of the year, but may have been delayed by the medical vacations he embarked upon in the first three quarters. While it was speculated that cabinet reshuffle would be one of the urgent actions the President would take upon his return from London where he went for medical treatment, Alhassan’s comments have now made the timing of such action an issue. There are even insinuations that she is among those that have been penciled down for sack for poor performance and that she may have got wind of her impending sack, thus prompting her to quickly move to create a political explanation for her exit from the cabinet. Should a cabinet reshuffle come up at this time, it is unlikely that Alhassan would survive. Rather than the usual explanation of weeding out under-performing ministers and injecting new blood, political analysts would want to explain such changes as part of 2019 permutations. That is not the signal that a government that is racing against time to deliver on election promises would want to send.

The fourth option available to the President is to remain silent as he has done since the news broke. Again, that option could allow the discordant tunes trailing Alhassan’s comments to continue and could also present the President as weak and incapable of taking action on issues affecting his cabinet. Another option is for him to read the riot act to all cabinet members to desist from making political statements about 2019 or risk being sacked. That should have been the fist option immediately Alhassan’s comments went viral. But surprisingly, no official reaction came from the presidency, thereby creating a snowball effect with other political actors wading in, thus setting the 2019 race in motion.
Though, it is a fact that the President has the power to hire and fire cabinet members, how he wields such power in this current situation can send mixed political signals, even though a cabinet reshuffle still remains the most plausible option at this time.
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