President Bola Tinubu has been advised to sack the minister of foreign affairs Yusuf Tuggar over the leak of a letter from Qatari authorities.
Former presidential aide Reno Omokri gave the advice on Sunday.
On Saturday, a diplomatic correspondence between the Embassy of the State of Qatar in Abuja and Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding Tinubu’s proposed state visit to Qatar between March 2 and 3, 2024 was leaked.
In the letter dated February 22, 2024, Qatari officials said they would be unable to receive Tinubu for a business parley on the said days because there is no legally binding trade agreement between both nations among other reasons.
The Nigerian government reacted to the leaked correspondence by saying it was not a snub on Tinubu.
Reacting to the developments, Mr Omokri wrote on X on Sunday, “If I am President and my minister of foreign affairs comes to tell me that a sensitive national intelligence document has been leaked, my response to him would be simple: ‘Find the leaker, or find yourself another job!’
“A nice President cannot last in Nigeria. If you want to last as President, study Obasanjo!”
In another post, he wrote, “President Tinubu is too nice, and niceness is a weakness in Nigeria’s politics. Nigeria is a fairly brutal country, and on the scale with niceness on the left end and brutality on the right end, you may not want to move all the way to the right, like Abacha, but you also do not want to be too close to the left. You want to be somewhere in the middle, but tilting to the right, like Obasanjo.
“Whoever leaked that Qatar note verbale should be fished out, sacked, and prosecuted for violating the Official Secrets Act, as well as for economic and political sabotage. However, if you cannot fish out the specific individual or individuals, then you make a scapegoat of those in charge of the foreign affairs ministry.
“Sack the minister in charge of that ministry. Then, remove the civil servant who is the Permanent Secretary and reassign him to a less desirable ministry. Then, demote the Director in charge of the department from where the leak occurred.
“If the President does not ensure that heads roll over this embarrassment to his administration, he will project weakness, and his own head may roll. This is Nigeria. There are too many people in the system whose loyalty is to opposing political parties and actors.”
