Immediate past minister of communication, Adebayo Shittu, has said that he was shocked when his name was not included in President Muhammadu Buhari’s ministerial list.
Shittu said this in an interview on Sunday with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
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President Buhari reappointed 14 former ministers and 29 new ones which included seven females, Shittu was part of 18 ex-ministers who did not make the list.
“Of course, I expected that I will be reappointed (as a minister) but when it didn’t happen, as a Muslim, it didn’t take me five minutes before I accepted that what has come, it’s the will of God,” Shittu said.
“And I have also found comfort in a Quranic verse when God promised that what is to come later is better than what is with you now.
“So for me, it says we must accept that there is always something better with God which he gives to his beloved.
“I have come a long way and I have served at the state and national levels and the experience that I have garnered over the last three and half years cannot be purchased from the stores or from the market,” he said.
The former minister, who unsuccessfully attempted to contest the party’s ticket for Oyo governorship poll in 2019, said he had decided to return to his legal profession.
He was disqualified for failing to participate in the compulsory one year national service under the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).
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He said: “I want to thank God that I am one politician who has a second address in the sense that, if I am not a minister, I will be doing some other productive things which will also contribute to national development.
“As a lawyer of about 40 years, I now have my chambers opened in Abuja. So now, I am back in practice.”
Shittu also thanked Buhari for the opportunity to serve as minister.
He was the youngest lawmaker at the age of 26 to be elected a member of the Oyo State House of Assembly in 1979.
