Geoffrey Jideofor Onyeama was included in the second ministerial nominees list read out today by Senate President Bukola Saraki because he is friends with President Muhammadu Buhari’s Chief of Staff Abba Kyari.
Both attended Cambridge University in the 1980s and have been close friends ever since.

Most observers predicted that Osita Okechukwu, an All Progressives Congress (APC) stalwart in Enugu State, and an indigene of Eke like Onyeama, would be the nominee from the state. But Okechukwu lost out because Onyeama had friends in high places.

Onyeama is the fourth son of Charles Dadi Onyeama, who was Nigeria’s first ever judge at the International Court of Justice at the Hague, and younger brother of author Dilibe. The nominee also read law at Cambridge after a degree in Political Science from Columbia University and has worked with the World Intellectual Property Organisation since the 1980s.