(L-R) Mr Gimba Ya'u Kumo, MD, Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria and Mr. Samson Olatunbosun, MD, Union Homes Savings and Loans Plc, during a courtesy call on the FMBN by the management of Union Homes in Abuja recently.

President Goodluck Jonathan is engaging relevant stakeholders to ensure the emergence of a National Assembly leadership that will support his entire programme for the next four years.
With the 2011 general elections finally over, the definite nature of the government at the federal, state, National Assembly and state Houses of Assembly has started to   emerge. For instance, the People Democratic Party (PDP) still controls the presidency and has the majority of state governors, while the opposition Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), swept off the South West states of the country hitherto controlled by the ruling party.
BusinessWorld Intelligence investigation reveals that various coalition groups across the country, even from abroad, have started mounting pressure on President Jonathan for the sharing of the spoils of office. One of the most contentious axes of power is the National Assembly where senators, with the backing of powerful forces in the party, are already jockeying for various leadership positions in the new dispensation. Impacting on the choice of who emerges as the National Assembly leaders is the zoning issue which certain section of the country is stubbornly clamouring for. The PDP Governors’ Forum also wields enormous influence on this matter.
BusinessWorld Intelligence can reveal authoritatively that President Goodluck Jonathan is, however, making strategic moves to ensure that the leadership of the National Assembly that will emerge after May 29 will be the one that will be most favourable to him and not pose major challenge to his leadership at the executive branch.
As part of the calculations, the Presidency is said to be disposed to maintaining the status quo at the Senate especially now that the new Senate President will not also come from the South West where PDP lost almost all the seats in the National Assembly election. All efforts are currently geared towards finding concurrence and confluence of agreement on the choice of the National Assembly leadership that will not be antagonistic to the presidency.
The strategy also includes having a Speaker of the House of Representatives that will not pose any threat to the President, who will be a “yes man,” so that the Presidency may have a leeway in most legislative actions contemplated in the next four years. This is based on the experiences of former President Olusegun Obasanjo in which the Speaker of the House of Representatives challenged the Presidency and gave it sleepless nights over various issues tabled before the House for input and moderation.
The overall goal is to have a National Assembly that will rubber-stamp most of the executive actions for the next four years. But whether this scenario will work out as expected is another matter entirely. The rest of the calculations proceed from this basic objective.
BusinessWorld investigations reveal that it is thus expected that the President-elect will re-engineer the machinery of government to deliver dividends of democracy to Nigerians given his promises to the electorates during the electioneering campaign.
The major plank here is to have a cabinet of ministers and special advisers that will help the President achieve his contemplated programme of actions for the next four years. Majority of the current Ministers, although are lobbying vigorously for retention, will likely be asked to go to pave way for new and more competent hands. The president has hinted that he is shopping for new hands from the ranks of Nigerians in Diaspora and also from the private sector to help drive his agenda.
Top on his programme, President Jonathan is looking towards tackling the economy head-on. But his success will be determined by the calibre of Ministers assembled by his administration. Strategic to the economic success is up-scaling the power sector to provide more megawatts of electricity supply to drive the economy to new heights.
Another agendum is security of lives and properties. President Jonathan is expected to embark on the reform of the security and intelligence agencies in the country to be able to meet the challenges of insecurities in the 21st century. Many Nigerians are by the impunity with which right to life and property in Nigeria is violated without adequate justice meted out to the criminal elements in society.
BusinessWorld Intelligence also reveal that President Jonathan is contemplating effecting a change in the leadership of the anti-corruption bodies in the country, as corruption is still an albatross to the nation. Although, the leaders of the anti-corruption agencies are frantically lobbying him to retain their jobs, investigations reveal that the president is not happy with overall performance of some of the bodies so far.