IN PRAISE OF SPECIAL DUTIES’ MINISTER

Hon Zaphaniah Jisalo, a two-term chairman of the Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC), a two-term member of the Federal House of Representatives, and the Abuja coordinator of the Tinubu/Shettima Presidential Campaign Council in FCT was appointed Minister of the Ministry of Special Duties and Inter-governmental affairs. The minister has spent 100 days in office, and many are of the view that he has started credibly well. After assuming office, he embarked on a tour to familiarize himself with the various departments, agencies and parastatals under his ministry. The tour took him to the National Lottery Regulatory Commission, the National Lottery Trust Fund, and the National Merit Award, all agencies under his ministry. The visit availed the staff and management the opportunity to meet with him and discuss their constraints and successes and advised the minister on what is needed to make the bureaucracy work better for service deliver.     

 Hon Zaphaniah Jisalo’s office is charged with the responsibility of representing the President when he is not personally available, to embark on visits to areas he is called upon to visit. This is what the minister has been doing credibly. In the past 100 days the minister has represented the President at the 39th Convocation/Matriculation Ceremonies of the University of Abuja and the Federal University, Lokoja where he delivered a speech articulating the policy direction of the present administration on education especially on the tertiary education.

In his visit to the National Lottery Trust Fund, the minister prioritized the government’s expectations from the Trust Fund and gave a vivid direction and new mandate of expectations to the management that will impact positively the interventionist mantra for which the Lottery Trust Fund was set up. The minister in the visit, made it clear that the present administration of President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu abhors corruption and the Fund must think out of the box on new ways to make sure that funds available to it must be used judiciously to intervene in the various areas its enabling laws permit.

The minister also went to Lagos to open the International Gaming Conference 2023 organized and hosted by the National Lottery Regulatory Commission with the theme, “Innovation and Disruption: Core Strategies for Success which was held at the Eko Hotel and Suites on the 31st October – 1st November, 2023. This conference was germane to the present situation in the Nigerian gaming industry.

The National Lottery Regulatory Commission was created by the National Lottery Act 2005 (as amended) by an act of the National Assembly to enable the federal government to properly organize and coordinate the operations of the lottery business in the country.

The expectations on the minister’s shoulders are high because the President is a man who expects more from whom much is given. And it is pertinent to note that the minister is a man who engages in peer assessment.

Musa Wada,

Media aide, Abuja