President Muhammadu Buhari has accepted the resignation of the Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun.
According to a statement issued by the Special Adviser to the [President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, in Abuja on Friday night, the president thanked the minister for her services to the nation and wished her well in her future pursuits.
The president also approved that the Minister of State, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, should oversee the Ministry of Finance with immediate effect.
News of the minister’s resignation had gone viral Friday morning but her aides promptly denied that she had quit her job.
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However, one of the aides, who begged not to be named, informed Saturday Tribune around 9.00 p.m. that they hesitated in confirming the resignation Friday afternoon because they were expecting the announcement to come from the presidency.
By late Friday evening, the aide informed Saturday Tribune that Mrs Adeosun’s belongings were being packed out of the office.
Anxiety had mounted earlier on Friday following a widely circulated report of the minister’s resignation.
But a senior aide of the minister, who said he was not authorised to speak on the matter, told Saturday Tribune that “it is not true.”
The aide said, “You should notice that we have not spoken on the issue of the certificate since the matter started on July 7. It is an agenda that they are pursuing and we will not help them to authenticate that.
“I am here with you. You can also see the other aides and security details at their duty posts. Even the minister is in her office right now carrying on with her work. Don’t mind them.”
The Director of Information at the ministry, Mr Hassan Dodo, said he had no information about the then alleged resignation.
Another senior official who did not want to be quoted insisted that “there is nothing like that.”
There were insinuations within the ministry that some senior administration officials might be behind the report.
Adeosun was said to have had running battles with some of her colleagues over management of the Federal Government’s revenues, including her refusal to approve payment for some lawyers who allegedly acted as commission agents in the repatriation of over $300 million Abacha loot recently.
In her resignation letter, Adeosun said she had become privy to the findings of the investigation into the allegation that the Certificate of Exemption from National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) that she had presented was not genuine.
“This has come as a shock to me and I believe that in line with this administration’s focus on integrity, I must do the honourable thing and resign,” she said and went on to outline what described as some of the background to the matter.
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