President Donald Trump of the United States said on Friday that his administration is set to change the employment classifications of many federal workers.

In a post on social media, Trump said moving forward, career government employees who work on policy matters will be classified as “schedule policy/career.”

According to him, the change would ensure that the federal government will finally be run like a business.

The president’s announcement, putting into action an executive order he signed on his first day in office on January 20, will likely strip vast numbers of the 2.3 million-strong federal workforce of their job protections by effectively making them employees at will.

A professor at the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, Don Moynihan, said by deeming anyone involved in policy as part of this new category, the pool of people that could potentially be fired expands enormously, because nearly everyone in government touches policy in one way or another.

It will be recalled that Trump ordered the reclassification of many government workers at the end of his first term, known as Schedule F, which former Democratic President Joe Biden rescinded on his first day in office in 2021.

Estimates then were that Schedule F could make at least 50,000 federal workers vulnerable to being fired.

According to Moynihan, the new order is broad enough that hundreds of thousands of people could be reclassified before firings begin.

No fewer than 260,000 federal workers have already reportedly been fired, have taken buyouts, retired early or have been earmarked for termination since Trump took office.

The reclassification comes as Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency continue their drive to cut the size and cost of the federal workforce.

President of the American Federation of Government Employees, the biggest federal workers’ union with 800,000 members, Everett Kelley, decried the move by Trump.

“President Trump’s action to politicize the work of tens of thousands of career federal employees will erode the government’s merit-based hiring system and undermine the professional civil service that Americans rely on,” Kelley said.

Former governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose has declared that the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, needs a miracle because all is not well with the party.

Disclosing this on Channels TV’s Politics Today on Friday evening, Fayose also warned that a Southerner can’t become president after Tinubu.

Fayose also insisted that the governors and ministers forums have no backing of PDP’s constitution.

He said: “The situation in the party is unfortunate and regrettable because the problem didn’t start today, we have a backlog of issues and the party has not called for any reconciliation and it’s everybody doing their thing; everybody is defending their tea, cup, and position.

“When you use one broom to sweep, you will catch no impact but when you use the whole broom to sweep, you will get the impact.

“It’s not a denied fact that all is not well with the PDP and except a miracle that can bring this party to the dreamed destination, and it’s a dream that may not happen if care is not taken.

“It’s has affected the party even within the National Working Committee, show me the peace? Show me the command, where the directives are coming from, nowhere.

“I was a governor and I gave my best, I never decamped even when it wasn’t going easy with me, I faced the government of the day.

“People can say what they like but after Asiwaju’s tenure, let a Southerner come out, I will also come out and say a Southerner can’t be president of Nigeria.

“There are various association created to be able to have a voice in the party and one of them is Ministers forum, another one is the forum where former governors meet to take far reaching decisions in the party, then we have the governors forum.

“So, without deceiving myself, I belong to the association of former governors and every body that is governor today will leave the seat and join us. Let me remind Nigerians that the association is not known to our constitution. Ministers forum and governors forum has nothing to do with the party.

“The Ministers forum and governors forum have nothing to do with our constitution, we have power and strength as governor but it’s obvious that there is little they can do.”

The presidency has insisted that the Vice President, Kashim Shettima and his Principal, President Bola Tinubu are in good terms, stressing that both politicians share unbreakable bond.

Stanley Nkwocha, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Office of the Vice President, debunked the speculations on Saturday, morning, saying such insinuations exist only in the imagination of mischief makers.

He said there has been a recent plot insinuating that the Vice President is being denied access into the Presidential Villa, by the security personnel in the State House, a development he dismissed as totally untrue.

Nkwocha took to a statement to clear the air, saying,” in recent times, there has been deliberate and well-planned orchestration of falsehood against the vice president’s person and office in many multidimensional forms.

“These mischievous and totally fabricated reports are all in a bid to cause confusion and insinuate total clash in the Presidency. These reports seek to mislead the public into believing there’s discord at the highest levels of government.

“The latest in this string of disinformation is a report claiming that the Vice President has been refused entry to the Villa. This is a feeble attempt to traduce the person and office of His Excellency, Vice President Kashim Shettima, GCON. For the record, nothing of the sort ever happened.

“The recent publication by some obscure blogs alleging that armed military units have barricaded the Vice President from accessing the Presidential Villa is not only the wildest expression of wishful thinking but a clear indication that the purveyors of these tales have exhausted both ink and imagination. It is a story so far removed from reality that it can only be entertained by those unfamiliar with the inner workings of the Nigerian government.

“Earlier this week, the Presidency dismissed similar fake news regarding responsibility for the circulation of campaign posters bearing the images of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR. These stories reflect a desperate attempt to undermine the President and his Deputy’s fidelity to the rule of law and our constitution. Let it be known that those pushing these falsehoods do so in vain.

“It is understandable, though regrettable, that the mischief-makers continue to underestimate the strength of the bond and goodwill between the President and the Vice President. However, their questionable sources or habitual reliance on misinformation have once again led them astray. These fairy tales they publish serve no purpose beyond mischief and distraction.

“The Vice President remains focused on his duties and on supporting the President in achieving the aspirations of Nigerians. He does not have the luxury of time for distractions, particularly those born of the imagination of individuals intent on creating smoke where there is no fire. He’s not and will never partake in their media circus. It is a futile pursuit, even by the standards of the morally indifferent.

“We commend Nigerians across all divides who continue to express goodwill towards this administration and who have taken it upon themselves to fight the spread of fake news. Your trust and support are deeply appreciated. The covenant between this government and the citizens of Nigeria was made possible through a legitimate and constitutional process. No amount of falsehood or manufactured tension can shake the foundation of that democratic mandate. Not under the watch of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR.

“We encourage the public to disregard such malicious publications and the media to continue seeking information from credible sources and to approach sensational claims with the caution they deserve. This we owe ourselves collectively as a nation”.