Sources Reveal Political Power Behind Maryam Shetty’s Removal As Ministerial Nominee

President Bola Tinubu on Friday surprisingly replaced the name of one of his ministerial nominees, Maryam Shetty during plenary at the Senate.

Naija News understands that the development happened a few hours before the screening of Shetty as a ministerial nominee.

The President who had earlier nominated Shetty in the 19-man list submitted to the Senate, informed the Senate about the addition of two ministerial nominees and the withdrawal of Shetty.

Shetty who is from Kano State was replaced with Mariya Mahmoud Bunkure, a former Commissioner for Higher Education in Kano State.

Also, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and former Minister of State for Labour and spokesman for the All Progressives Congress (APC) Campaign Council during the presidential election, Festus Keyamo was included among the ministerial nominees.

There are indications that the removal of Shetty as ministerial nominee is because of power-play within the ruling party.

Sources confirmed to Daily Trust that the former Governor of Kano State, Abdullahi Ganduje, who is now the National Chairman of the APC nominated Bunkure, his former commissioner to replace Shetty.

Ganduje’s associates who spoke with the platform claimed that power play led to the swapping of Shetty with Bunkure.

The sources said she was swapped because she does not belong to the political family of the former governor.

It was suspected that her name was “smuggled” into the list by a senior member of the presidency.

It was gathered that Ganduje was informed that the slot Shetty used to make the list should have gone to him; hence he was asked to nominate a replacement.

This is more so as the other nominee from Kano, Abdullahi Tijjani Gwarzo, is Tinubu’s associate from their days in the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).

Thus, after Ganduje emerged as the national chairman of the party on Thursday at the party’s 12th National Executive Council (NEC) meeting and got the information that the president had been ‘misled’ in nominating Shetty, he started the process of “righting the wrongs,” his associates said.

One of the sources said the president was surprised that the nomination of Shetty did not come from Ganduje.

The source said, “The people that nominated her showed a picture she took with the former Kano governor to the president to make it look like she was in his group”.

On how the replacement was communicated, one of the associates of Ganduje said it was the president’s way of communicating to those who “smuggled” Shetty’s name into the list to know that he was in charge and was not happy.

He said, “It was also to communicate that the national chairman has the hearing ears of the president, and it is a warning to whoever smuggled her name into the list.”

However, sources close to Shetty said that aside from the insinuation that the young politician was reportedly nominated by the chief of staff to the president, another reason Ganduje sought and secured her replacement was that she had been vocal in the past against some of his policies when he held sway as governor, including the controversial deposition of former Emir Muhammadu Sanusi.

One of her associates in Kano said, “Perhaps the insinuation that she was nominated by the chief of staff gained momentum because Shetty is Abuja-based although she is from Kano. This might be the reason the Kano APC family was not happy with her nomination.

“Another reason is that she is close with former Emir Muhammadu Sanusi and she was very vocal against his removal. You know she is very popular on social media, where she champions several causes, including women’s rights.”