LEAD STORY:
ALL EYES ON TINUBU’S MINISTERS
– As he Breaks Traditions
The emergence of Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the fifth democratically elected president of Nigeria since the return to civil rule in 1999 marked a turning point in the history of Nigeria.
For the first time, a political party deployed all arsenals to deny its candidate the presidency through subterfuge and political scheming but the candidate still went ahead to win.
As a master of the game of politics, Tinubu too deployed his ethnic arsenals to make his case against those hell bent on denying him his inalienable right to contest the presidency.
Though the circumstances under which he emerged president are still being contested by political opponents, Tinubu has demonstrated political sagacity in managing the impasse.
As a strategist, he surrounded himself with hyper active and garrulous politicians of northern extraction as foot soldiers who delivered the majority votes from the North that gave him the win.
For a man with these sterling qualities, Nigerians expected Tinubu to apply magic want to address the most pressing problems of unending insecurity, disunity, and economic downturn that have almost brought the country down on its knees.
To the surprise of many, Tinubu’s first major policy decision was to remove the controversial subsidy on petrol that has constituted a huge burden on the nation’s finances.
Tough as the decision was, President Tinubu believed it was the only bitter pill available to free the nation’s economy from the firm grip of oppressive and corrupt cartel that has held Nigeria captive for decades.
But the consequences of this decision is what Nigerians are complaining about as the price of food and other essentials skyrocketed to an all-time high, depriving many families of their daily meals. The cost of public transportation has tripled, while many Nigerian middle class cannot fuel their vehicles to go to work or their business places.
The Labour Unions attempt to cow the government into reversing the policy failed because the Tinubu administration craftily handed some olive branch to the leaders, promising to effect an upward wage review for workers, provide food palliatives and farming inputs to the rural communities.
Analysts believe some of those measures are long term, when the people are looking for immediate succor that will put food on their tables and enable them go back to work.
With the appointment of new ministers last week, the Tinubu administration has set the ball rolling for real business of governance to commence. But the devil is in the details.
Many Nigerians have questioned the credentials of most of the ministers and cast doubt about their capacity to manage the portfolios they have been given.
According to some unconfirmed reports circulation in the social media space, about 41 of the ministers have corruption cases that have either been swept under the carpet or dismissed for lack of proper prosecution by the anti-corruption agencies.
The combination of Tinubu’s ministers is a departure from the old tradition of appointing more technocrats and professional to the most strategic ministries, leaving politicians with less busy ones that require no expertise.
Another break from the old tradition was the appointment
of 45 ministers, far above the number of states as stipulated by the constitution. President Tinubu inflated the ministerial slots by 9 more, which has given some states like Katsina, Bauchi and Rivers two slots.
The question on the lips of many analysts and critics is, can the ministers deliver in the face of numerous challenges Tinubu inherited from his predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari?
A closer look at the ministerial list, reveals that not more than ten are tested technocrats or professionals whose experience, knowledge, and exposure may bring value to his administration.
These include the minister of Finance, Wale Edun, Minister of Communications, Innovations and Digital Economy, Bosun Tijani, Minister of Health and Social Service, Prof. Mohammed Ali Pate, Minister of Education, Dr. Tahir Mamman, Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Arch. Ahmed Musa Dangiwa, of Works, Minister of Works, David Umahi, and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Amb. Yusuf Tuggar, and Minister of Police Affairs, Imaan Suleiman-Ibrahim.
According to keen observers, the rest are like putting a square peg in a round hole as they lack both experience and knowledge of their ministries. But others have argued that ministers don’t need to be experts in the portfolios assigned to them since they are just policy coordinators.
”The bulk of the job is handled by the permanent secretaries and directors of the ministries who have the skills, expertise and experience to implement the policies and deliver results.
”What is required of a minister is leadership and capacity to spot problems and direct his subordinates to handle them. The job of a minister is to mobilize and allocate resources and expect results that he will report to the President” said a public affairs commentator.
The appointment that shocked people most is that of defense, which was given to northerners who have no prior defense or security experience. Both Mohammed Badaru Abubakar and Bello Matawalle are former governors whose state been affected by banditry. In the case of Matawalle, he went to the extreme of negotiating peace with the bandits’ leaders, which did not yield any appreciable results. Most analysts why Matawalle who could not address the insecurity in his state of Zamfara was given defense portfolio.
The appointment of Mallam Nuhu Ribadu too as National Security Adviser drew
the ire of many critics who saw it as a goof to appoint a retired Assistant Inspector General of Police to oversee serving military Generals, who may take orders from him. They argued that he lacks any experience on defence and military strategy.
The new ministry of Marine and Blue Economy will be driven by the former governor of Osun State, Adegboyega Oyetola who is a trained Applied Accountant. Much as the ministry is a goldmine where so much revenue can be generated, Oyetola needs to embark on a diplomatic shuttle to woe foreign investors and formulate radical friendly policies that will open up the sector to genuine investors and remove all the bottlenecks that render Nigerian shipping industry inefficient.
The appointment of Ahmed Musa Dangiwa as the Minister of Housing and Urban Development is seen by many industry experts as perfect given his over 20 years of experience in the industry as a consultant and active member. His five-year tenure at the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria was a litmus test of his capacity to deliver mass housing to the Nigerian middle and lower classes at affordable mortgage.
The Executives believes he will introduce far reaching reforms to raise the capital base of the Mortgage Bank and increase access to funding for low income earners. This might reduce the housing deficit that is currently in the region of 28-30 million.
Another appropriate appointment was that of Bosun Tijani, a Nigerian-British entrepreneur with expertise in innovation systems, entrepreneurship, and social network analysis. His appointment is expected to bridge the gap between sloganeering and concrete action to expose the Nigerian youth to the opportunities offered by internet.
As a successful entrepreneur and founder of Co Creation-Hub, Tijani has the capacity to change the direction of our youth regarding internet usage.
He is expected to drive policies that will promote local production of ICT hardware like laptop and android phones cases, chargers, earpiece, repair kits etc. which are being imported from China, draining Nigeria’s foreign reserve.
Both the Education and Health Ministers came from solid backgrounds of professional competence in managing their portfolios. Prof. Tahir is former Director General of the Nigerian Law School under whose tenure the institution witnessed unprecedented expansion of its facility that reduced the waiting period for trained legal practitioners to be called to the bar. He is very familiar with the challenges in the education sector.
But the major challenges he will face are those of finding a very sustainable funding for education, especially at the tertiary level. There is pending agreement between the Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities which the former has failed to honour. It would be his responsibility to take it from where his predecessor has left in order to restore normalcy on our university campuses.
Another major challenge for Tahir is how to address the contending issue of who performed very well in the West African Examination Council examination because of the limited slots available in the universities, polytechnics and colleges of education.
He has a big task of reviewing the policy, decentralizing the admission process, and provide more funding for the institutions. The role of JAMB in Nigeria’s admission process may need to be redefined so that the universities can have autonomy to admit students that have minimum scores for admission.
As a health care professional of international refute with over 30 years of experience in managing health programmes and initiatives, Prof. Muhammad Ali Pate is not new to the Nigeria’s health sector. He was a former minister during the tenure of Goodluck Jonathan.
The expectation are high on him as he arrives at the time when the health sector is facing serious challenges of a weak system, prevalence of quack medical practitioners, lack of access to health facilities by Nigerians in rural communities, and a serious brain drain of experienced medical doctors and nurses who migrated to Canada, Qatar, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and United States.
He will need to deploy his skills and knowledge of the terrain to restore the sector from imminent collapse. His first major task may be to strengthen the health system to make it competitive enough to attract the best from Nigeria and abroad. Secondly, he needs to roll of policies that will check the proliferation of quack practitioners, and work in collaboration with NAFDAC to check infiltration of fake drugs into Nigerian markets.
Prof. Pate needs to think of a way to expand health care to the rural communities either through a Public Private Partnership, or introduce community mobile clinics. He needs to roll out his creativity to change the health narratives of Nigeria. For him to achieve this, he needs the support of state and local governments, who are closer to the people.
If he is able to secure more funding from the government, Pate can arrest the disturbing brain drain of Nigeria’s medical professionals whose major grouse are poor remunerations, and lack of hospital equipment like machines and testing kits. With collaboration and partnership this challenge can be overcome, and Pate has the connections and network to buy in such opportunities.
Olawole Edun, the Minister of Finance is another good choice whose wealth of experience is needed to address the monumental challenges of Nigeria’s fiscal and monetary policies that defied solution since 2015 when President Muhammadu Buhari took over the reins of government.
The major challenge before Edun is raising the revenue profile of the nation amidst growing huge debt burden and dwindling oil revenue. His major undertaking might be formulation of fiscal policies that will promote revenue growth and expenditure control.
He is expected to use his international connection to seek a review of the terms of payment of Nigeria’s foreign debt, or request for outright debt forgiveness as the Obasanjo regime did under Mrs. Okonjo Iweala’s tenure as finance minister.
With the caliber of persons he brought into the government, many political pundits believe Tinubu has enormous challenges confronting his administration which require permanent and effective measures to address.
It would seem President Tinubu has different approach to solving the problems in the power and security sectors of the economy. Nobody understands the rationale behind his appointment of Adebayo Adelabu as Minister of Power.
It remains to be seen how a chartered accountant will address the persistent challenge of giving Nigerians a very reliable supply of electricity to light the homes and power their factories or businesses. He might need to think out of the box to rescue the power sector whose reform programme seemed to have failed to deliver results.
As chartered accountant, he may use his connections and networks to secure foreign direct investment into the sector by initiating another phase of privatizing to usher in new generating companies, transmission lines and distribution infrastructure to give the sector a life-saving dose it needs to get off the ground.
For Heineken Lokpobiri, a two times minister of Petroleum Resources, the challenges in the oil industry are well known. What is not known is whether he and his principal will have the political will to do the needful to get the sector back on track to provide the needed revenue to oil the administration for delivery of dividends of democracy to the people.
The major challenge before him is to get the three comatose refineries back to work so that Nigerians may get cheaper fuel to run their vehicles. The restoration of local refining of petroleum products should be his top priority, according to industry players. Interestingly, the new minister has promised Nigerians that the Port Harcourt Refinery will be active by next year. But he was silent on the other two – Warri and Kaduna whose operations will go a long way to reduce the dependence on importation of products.
According to industry experts, even if the three refineries are restore to work optimally, the nation may still face scarcity due the breaking of most of the pipelines and deteriorating state of the fuel depots spread across the country which are needed to supply refined products to cut overdependence on road transportation of the products to different corners of the country.
With the appointment of two former governors with no back ground on security matters, as defence ministers, it is still unclear to Nigerians how President Tinubu hopes to address the persistent insecurity especially in northern Nigeria. Will the appointment of northerners solve the problem, or Tinubu just made it for political expedience?
The appointment of Abubakar Kyari as agriculture minister is not considered an impressive one, but his years in the National Assembly and career as a public servant in Borno State where he rose to the position of commissioner in different ministries, is an added advantage for him to perform well.
Kyari’s major challenges are largely those related to scarcity of modern farming equipment, unfriendly land tenure system, and inability of the majority of the farmers to move beyond subsistence and take agricultural production as a business.
Secondly, the exorbitant cost of fertilizers, herbicides and other inputs which is discouraging many Nigerians from going into agricultural production. The few that remain have not been incentivized to upscale it and diversify to other products.
Another challenge with the agriculture in Nigeria which the minister needs to address is the lack of modern preservation and processing equipment, which exposed many farmers to huge post-harvest losses. There is also the challenge of finding market for their produce as the nation’s Commodities Marketing Board has gone extinct.
It’s the task of the new minister to address these challenges head on so that Nigerians can produce food and cash crops all year round, and get good return on their investments.
Both the Minister of Foreign and Police Affairs are not new to the administration of their ministries. Tuggar was a Nigerian ambassador to different countries, including Germany. He therefore understands the dynamics and intricacies of international relations and diplomacy.
His major tasks would be to restore the strained relationship between Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates which deteriorated during the last administration when the then Aviation Minister banned the Emirates Airlines from flying into Nigeria. Dubai, in UAE is one the major business and employment destinations for Nigerians. But the diplomatic row between the two countries has blocked those opportunities.
Interestingly, President Bola Tinubu has indicated his willingness to intervene and restore normal relations between the two countries.
Tuggar must follow up on that commitment to open up discussions so that the matter can be resolved fast.
Imaan Suleiman Ibrahim, the new Sheriff at the Police Affairs ministry is an accomplished conflict and security expert. Her sociology background can be leveraged to reposition the Nigerian security architecture, especially the Nigeria Police.
Her major task would be to reorganize the police force, and oversee the formulation of new policies that will decentralize policing, and confer on the states more power to manage their internal security with limited interference from the federal police.
She might face serious opposition to this policy from some of the top ranks of the police force, but with the President’s backing she can make a head way.
Imaan has a big task taming the endemic corruption in the Force, which has denied it the capacity to perform. Thirdly, she needs to lobby the National Assembly, to increase funding for the police to establish more posts especially in ungoverned spaces where non state actors have taken over to unleash terror on innocent citizens.
Beyond the ability of the ministers to perform, President Tinubu needs to be proactive in exercising due diligence and effective supervision on his ministers to ensure they deliver on his promise of renewed hope to Nigerians.