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President Muhammadu Buhari assumes his second term in office on May 29, but unlike his first term, the president is looking towards forming the cabinet early, but no fewer than 10 current ministers are unlikely to be part of the administration’s ‘Next Level’
By Olu Ojewale
THE second inauguration of President Muhammadu Buhari, which is christened Next Level, is barely one month away. Unlike his first term in office, Buhari has assured Nigeria that the appointment of his cabinet members would not take as much as six months experienced in his first term. As expected, some of the current serving ministers will like to come back and join hands with the president to pilot the affairs of the country for another four years.
But certainly many of them are not going to return for some reasons. Many of the ministers have been accused of some misdeeds bothering on corruption, violation of law and other abuses of office. All these make them unworthy to serve a second term with the president whose main credential is harped on integrity.
Nevertheless, reports said no fewer than 15 ministers are lobbying members of the president’s kitchen cabinet for a second chance because “some of them who faltered in office are claiming that they have learnt their lessons.” Also in the race to be picked as ministers are said to be at least three outgoing governors.
In any case, it is on record that throughout his first tenure in office Buhari did not reshuffle his cabinet but only appointed new people to replace Amina Mohammed, a former minister of Environment, who left in December 2016, to become the deputy secretary general of the United Nations; James Ocholi, who died in a car crash along Kaduna-Abuja road, March 6, 2016; Kemi Adeosun, who resigned as finance minister over the NYSC certificate scandal in September 2018; Aisha Alhassan, who resigned as minister of Women Affairs in September 2018 to contest as governor of Taraba State; and Kayode Fayemi, who resigned as minister of Mineral Resources in September 2018, to contest Ekiti State governorship election.
While Mohammed was replaced by Suleiman Hassan, a surveyor, Stephen Ocheni, a professor of accounting, succeeded the late Ocholi and made minister of state for Labour and Productivity. Similarly, Zainab Ahmed, a former minister of state for Budget and National Planning, succeeded Adeosun as finance minister; Abubakar Danladi Sani, a former senator was appointed successor to Alhassan while Abubakar Bwari, a minister of state, took over as the acting minister of mineral resources.
In the new dispensation, the president has promised to give youths and women more priorities in the new cabinet. Even though the president has been keeping the list of his nominees to his chest, it could be safely deduced that a number of his current ministers will not be reconsidered for appointments.
Indeed, on performance, several ministers have left so much to be desired and therefore, put them in bad a reckoning with the public. Similarly, many other ministers have been involved in a number of scandals that put the Buhari administration’s integrity to question.
One of such ministers is Mohammed Bello, the minister of the Federal capital Territory, FCT. Bello is reputed to have performed dismally since he assumed office. One Fredrick Nwabufo, an Abuja resident captured the whole performance of the minister like this: “I have lived in Abuja for years; I have never seen the city so dirty, ramshackle and unsafe before as it is now.
“Abuja is now a safe haven for criminals. Car snatching, armed robbery, ‘one-chance operations,’ and other criminality have become very common. The parlous state of insecurity is compounded by non-functional streetlights. At night, darkness envelops the city like a cumulus, giving cover to criminals to operate unchecked.”
Besides, he said the roads in the city had never been so deplorable with pot-holes and refuse littering the streets.
“Really, I doubt if any road project has been completed by the FCT administration under Bello. For example, the Karshi-Apo road, which the minister promised would be completed this month, is barely done. As you read these words, nothing is cracking up on that road. The pain of residents, who endure traffic gridlock on the Nyanya-Keffi road every day, is unimaginable. As it is, there is only one entry into and exit out of the Abuja suburb,” Nwabufo argued.
Another minister that his performance seems to be in doubt is Hadi Sirika, the minister of state on Aviation. His performance paled to insignificance when compared with that of Stella Oduah, a senator representing Anambra State, former aviation minister. Industry watchers say Sirika has not done enough to merit another term in Buhari cabinet.
Another minister whose performance may not take him to the “Next Level,” with Buhari is Adebayo Shittu, the minister of communications. Shittu has been in the news more for controversy than for performance. He was accused by some of staff of refusing to pay them after many years of service. He was reputed to have divided the APC in Oyo State because he could not get the party ticket to contest the governorship post.
Perhaps, the most scandalous of his controversial stance is that he did not participate in the mandatory National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, programme after he graduated from the Law School in 1979. He claimed that having been elected a member of the Oyo State House of Assembly after law school, he could be exempted from the NYSC because being a “honourable member” was already service to father land.
Incidentally, as the head of the ministry, a Nigerian graduate cannot get a job if he does not have an NYSC discharge or exemption certificate. And on performance scale, Shittu is arguably below par when compared with Omobola Johnson, the immediate past minister of Communications.
Another minister that is not likely to make the list is Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, the minister of Transportation. Even though Amaechi has been commended for rail projects in some parts of the country, he does not command the respect of the president as before.
In January, an audio recording making the rounds saw Amaechi castigating his principal. He was heard to be expressing some misgivings about Buhari, while he was the director-general of his re-election bid.
In the recording, which was made public by Phrank Shaibu, a spokesperson for the Atiku Abubakar campaign, Amaechi was heard saying: “These are not things you publish ooo. If you publish them, you will never sit with me any day.
“Three years of Buhari oo, everybody is crying, crying…pressmen are crying, farmers are crying, workers are crying, politicians are crying, students are crying, three years oo!
“The rate of poverty is very high. The people are hungry. Nigeria will never change!”
Apart from that, in an earlier recording, Amaechi appeared to be describing Buhari as a leader that does not listen and care.
He allegedly said: “The president does not listen to anybody. He doesn’t care. You can write what you want to write. The president doesn’t care. Does he read? He will read, he will laugh. He will say ‘come, come and see, they are abusing me here.’
“I was flying with him in the aircraft and we saw a news report where a goat seller was complaining that he couldn’t sell his goats during Sallah because of Buhari’s administration. And the president said what is my business with Onitsha goat sellers?”
Hours after the video leaked, it led to a social media storm which forced the Presidency to react by saying that the audio was old and from 2014. Tolu Ogunlesi, a presidential assistant, in a tweet admitted that the voice on the audio was that of Amaechi, but he did not mention Buhari by name.
Nevertheless, the president later downgraded Amaechi as head of his campaign team and appointed Bola Tinubu, former Lagos State governor and national leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC, as chairman of his campaign. On Monday, January 7, Buhari said: “Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, my co-chairman, will be fully in charge, and is going to be on 24-hour vigil…
“I, therefore, urge all of us in the leadership of this campaign, in the field operations on the campaign trail and in the secretariat to consult with Asiwaju whenever guidance is needed.” That was a great departure from the previous election when the former governor of Rivers State was fully in charge.
Besides, the minister’s conducts and actions during the time of the electioneering were said to have further divided the party, especially in the Rivers State than ever. Hence, the APC in the state was unable to present a governorship candidate during the last election and did not win in the presidential poll in the state.
Like Amaechi, Lai Mohammed, minister of information and culture, is also involved in a scandal that may deprive hime of being reappointed. Unlike Amaechi, who failed to deliver Rivers State, Buhari won in Kwara State where Mohammed comes from. However, Buhari could dispense with Mohammed because of the scandal rocking his political life.
The crisis currently rocking the National Broadcasting Commission, NBC, links Mohammed as accomplish in the release of N2.5 billion in questionable payments to a private digital broadcast signal provider.
The Premium Times which broke the news said it had some documents which showed that the payments which were made in May 2017, to Pinnacle Communications Limited, PCL, by the NBC have now been deemed fraudulent by the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission, ICPC.
Consequently, the agency had also brought charges against four individuals, including Modibbo Kawu, the director-general of NBC; Lucky Omoluwa and Dipo Onifade, the two Pinnacle executives as well as the company itself. They are all standing trial for the questionable payments to the company, the allegations which they have all denied. The Premium Times report, however, indicated that Mohammed, as the minister supervising the NBC, approved the payment to the PCL, a private digital broadcast signal carrier. The minister was also involved in several negotiations and foreign trips that preceded the payment, it said.
“Although anti-graft detectives at the ICPC knew Mohammed was involved, they declined to hold him criminally liable. Instead, they argued in court documents that the minister was misled into granting the approval.
“When he was questioned by detectives, Mr Mohammed said he only signed documents as forwarded to him for approval by Mr Kawu. He also did not deny the possibility of fraud in the N2.5 billion payments he approved,” the newspaper report said.
A school of thought believes that Mohammed’s defence and declaration of ignorance were not good enough for a minister whose duty is to protect public integrity. “His excuses are not tenable and should be properly scrutinised after leaving office; I believe he knows more than what is telling the public. He should not come back as a minister,” Olalekan Bolarinwa, a public commentator said.
Similarly unlikely to be appointed minister is Chris Ngige, the minister of Labour and Productivity. Ngige, the former governor of Anambra State is not a darling of the Nigerian labour force. In fact, he is being blamed for all the major labour crises that have confronted the Buhari administration since inception.
Even his recent pronouncement that Nigeria has enough doctors has been rocking the country. Indeed, the Nigerian Medical Association, the National Association of Resident Doctors, human rights groups, among others have taken a swipe at Ngige.
The minister had on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Wednesday, April 24, said doctors who felt they wanted to relocate in search of greener pastures were free to do so as the nation had enough medical personnel.
Ngige had, while responding to a question on brain drain and the deliberate recruitment of Nigerian doctors by foreign embassies in Nigeria, said there was nothing wrong with doctors leaving the country as they would continue to send foreign exchange home which would, in turn, grow the economy.
But Ngim Ngim, national president, Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria, in a newspaper interview, said Ngige was wrong about Nigeria having enough doctors. He said: “I don’t know what must have informed the minister’s opinion, but the doctor: patient ratio in Nigeria is still far below the WHO recommendation. In as much as anybody has the right to travel out of the country, the government must put measures in place to give enough medical manpower in the country to take care of the population.
“Brain drain in the health sector is a big problem in the country; Nigeria does not have enough doctors, all efforts must, therefore, be made to keep the ones that are still in the country.”
In other separate interviews, Francis Faduyile, the NMA president, said Ngige did not have the knowledge of the World Health Organisation’s recommendation on doctor-patient ratio.
Okechukwu Enelamah, minister of Trade and Investment, is similarly on his way out of the Buhari cabinet for good. His performances have not been impressive. He is a nominee from Abia State were the president performed poorly.
At 71, Audu Ogbe, the minister of Agriculture is the oldest in the Buhari cabinet. He was engaged to intensify agricultural production in order to create jobs for the army of unemployed in the country. Despite the huge amount of money spent on Agricultural projects the benefits are not manifesting.
On Tuesday, April 16, Ogbeh expressed satisfaction that Nigeria was now producing 90 percent of the rice it consumes locally. The minister who was speaking at the 2019 Annual Research Review and Planning meeting held at the Institute for Agricultural Research, IAR, Zaria, Kaduna State, and represented by Karima Babangida, the director, Extension Services of the ministry, said the support of the present administration had triggered a visible shift “to eating what we grow rather than eating imported food.’’
“One very good example that we see today is the locally home grown Nigerian rice, hitherto, Nigeria has been a major and largest importer of rice from Thailand and this implies largest importer in the world,” he added.
Incidentally, earlier in March, last year Ogbe made a similar claim, when he said Thailand accused Nigeria of being responsible for the collapse of its seven rice mills, following the drastic fall in rice importation from the country, a claim that was faulted by the country’s ambassador to Nigeria.
That notwithstanding, a lot of Nigerians are yet to see or even eat the locally produced rice. In fact, out of 10 rice shops visited by Realnews in different parts of Lagos and Akute in Ogun states, recently showed that only three had little quantities of local rice while the rest of them were selling imported rice only.
“I have heard about the Metro Rice in Ogun State, I saw it only on television; it is not in Daleko Market and the rice is also not in Kuto,” Akin Onigbinde, SAN, a professor of law, said while speaking at public lecture in Lagos on Thursday, April 18.
The performance of Ogbeh in Agriculture ministry pales into insignificance when compared to what Adewunmi Adeshina, the former minister and now President of the African Development Bank did during his tenure. By so doing, Nigerians believe he does not deserve a second term on the Next Level. Even though Buhari may not agree, he may be allowed to leave on account of his age.
In fact, a newspaper report claimed that the National Working Committee, NWC, of the APC recently told the president to ensure that only faithful party members are appointed into executive positions. But some analysts argued that the president used his first term to settle political debts and should use the next four years to build the country.
Nevertheless, the minister of Information said on Thursday, April 25, that the current serving ministers will continue in their post until May 22.
However, Tunde Bakare, the serving overseer of the Latter Rain Assembly, said he prayed that Buhari would appoint the best, brightest and fittest people for his second term in office.
Bakare, who spoke on Channels television interview, said: “It is in our corporate interest to ensure that there is a future for our young people and for the children, to ensure good healthcare delivery, to ensure transportation system that is flawless; there is so much assets in this country.
“I pray that President Buhari will do his best in the second term to appoint the best, the brightest and the fittest, so that you will see Nigeria turn around as we maximise the potentials of the nation.”
Bakare stressed the need to create jobs for teeming Nigerian youths in a bid to steer them away from crime, stating that the country is facing a scourge of insecurity as a result of unemployment.
That notwithstanding. Buhari still holds all the aces. He said recently: “I assure you that I have listened to the representation made that my cabinet should include women and youth. Don’t celebrate it yet, I said I have listened to some of the representations made here.
“Well, I myself, I am considering some of the old people and I will protect my constituency too, but I will assure you that I will continue to have a team of people of integrity that is really concerned about Nigeria and Nigerians.”
If that is truly carried out, a good number of the current ministers are not likely to come back. Let’s wait and see!
– Apr. 26, 2019 @ 18:55 GMT |
Tags: Buhari's Cabinet: Ministers that May Not Return
