Facts have indicated that former Foreign Affairs Minister, Ambassador Yusuf Tuggar, who resigned last month, may have been frustrated out of office.
Top diplomatic sources told Sunday Telegraph that the former Nigerian Ambassador to Germany, who was appointed into the Ministry in August 2023 fell out with the powers that-be and was therefore sidelined in many diplomatic and security matters.
The suspicion was confirmed when Tuggar was conspicuously absent during President Bola Tinubu’s visit to Britain last month where many bilateral international agreements were signed. It was also gathered that he made little or no input into the selections, appointments and postings of the last controversial ambassadorial list, which caused some disaffections.
Although, he is a former member of House of Representatives, who had contested twice to be governor of Bauchi State, the reasons for the resignation said to be ostensibly to take another shot at the number seat in the state was said to be a subterfuge.
“He fell out with the powers-that-be a long time ago. Most of his memos and recommendations were trashed,” a source said, adding: “I can tell you that over 40 of such memos are still gathering dust on the table of a top government official without receiving any attention.”
As regards his so-called governorship, the source added that the odds do not favour him at all in Bauchi, because he is not in the league of some top aspirants like the former Minister of Health and others.
The Cambridge University-trained Diplomat said to belong to the CPC bloc of the All Progressives Congress(APC) might have returned to his private business as the chief executive officer of Nordic Oil and Gas Services, an energy consulting firm. The source also said that the former Minister was once queried over a foreign trip by highly placed officials in the presidency.
But responding to an enquiry on claims that the former Foreign Affairs Minister was frustrated out of office by those in the Presidency, a media aide to the President, Tope Ajayi said: “Tuggar is in the best position to answer any question if he was frustrated out of government. What I know is that he left the government to run for the governorship of his home state of Bauchi.
There is no part of his personally signed statement that said he left the government because he was frustrated. He gave a reason for leaving the government. The reason he gave was his governorship ambition. Anything outside that is baseless insinuation and thoughtless assumptions.”
