The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Abdullahi Adamu, has said it all: President Bola Ahmed Tinubu cannot appoint everyone as Minister. According to Adamu, Tinubu is consulting extensively before drawing up his ministerial list. He said: “The President has just started. And he is doing his extensive consultation before coming up with his nominees for ministers. The nomination of the ministers will come first. They will go through their screening until they are pronounced after they have been submitted by Mr. President. And Mr President will formally appoint his Ministers and swear them in. Only after doing that will he disclose each of them to the country to know which Minister is going to which ministry, and how many ministries we are going to have.”
Well said. But because of the precarious situation the country has been driven to, the President should not turn ministerial appointment to mere dishing out as patronage or complimentary bazaar, dashing out ministerial slots just simply because some former governors and ministers or “big man” helped out during electioneering. That is not what anxious Nigerians expect from their President right now.
- 17,000 jostle for 2,500 Abia teaching jobs
- LAUTECH workers protest ‘sudden’ salary reduction
- IPI, MRA issue resource guide on instruments protecting press freedom
- 14-year-old girl docked over alleged N4m theft
- Ondo governor sacks two female media aides
And this is where the argument is cogent: Tinubu needs to have as crew in his Renewed Hope vehicle technocrats. Of course, there are technocrats who are in politics and picking them is not a bad idea. There should be no place for any career politician in the much-anticipated cabinet.
Not a few Nigerians were scandalised recently when a minister in the immediate past cabinet regaled guests at a send off at the end of his tenure that prior to his appointment as minister of a very key ministry, he knew next to nothing about the sector. And he went on to spend eight good years at the post! Then the rationale thing to ask is: On what basis was he considered for the appointment in the first place? Any wonder most men and women in the immediate cabinet remained colourless throughout their tenure.
What obtained during the last dispensation as far as appointments were concerned, was nothing more than “compensation”. This was just because one lousy fellow helped to give you a hair cut or helped in drafting some letters, you remember such a fellow upon attaining your ultimate of being called the president and “dashed” him a slot in your cabinet. Any wonder why Nigerians only had a few bunch of cabinet members with stellar performances during the last dispensation.
At the twilight of last Federal Executive Council, a member of the cabinet, Festus Keyamo (SAN), hit on a very thorny issue, which President Tinubu must look into while shopping for members of his team: that is the issue of appointing Ministers of State, which the legal practitioner described as a “constitutional aberration”.
In Keyamo’s words: “The concept or designation of ‘Minister of State’ is a constitutional aberration and is practically not working for many so appointed. Successive governments have come and gone and many who were appointed as Ministers of State have not spoken out at a forum such as this because of the risk of sounding ungrateful to the Presidents who appointed them.”
According to Keyamo, which is a valid point anyway and further raises the question of why a rich but poor country like Nigeria should have 42 Ministers with all the flamboyance of the office, all ministerial nominees were grilled by the Senate. And during those anxious moments, all those who appear before the senate are what they are: Ministerial nominees. And according to the constitution, each represents their individual states or zone. So why should one be rendered redundant simply by designating him as Minister of State?
Perhaps we should have more of the Keyamo memo: “Ministers are appointed pursuant to Section 147(3) of the 1999 Constitution to represent each State of the Federation. Therefore, Ministers sit in Cabinet as the eye of Mr. President in each State of the Federation. It is therefore against the intendment of the drafters of our Constitution for a representative of a State to be reclassified as against another representative of another State.
“The Schedules of Duties of Ministers and Ministers of State that intend to cure some of these anomalies hardly help the issues. Firstly, the Schedules of Duties are observed more in breach by the Permanent Secretaries and Directors who really cannot be expected to serve two masters. And in any case, many of the roles of both Ministers are so ambiguous that the bureaucrats would always interpret them to satisfy the ones they see as the “Senior Ministers” or “main Ministers” for fear of being persecuted by them.
“Secondly, parts of the Schedules of Duties seem to suggest that the Ministers can delegate functions to the Ministers of State. This is a constitutional impossibility. It is only Mr. President that can delegate Presidential powers as one cannot delegate what he does not have (delegatus non potest delegare). In any case, how can someone who took the same Oath of Office with another delegate functions to that other?
“Thirdly, the Schedules of Duties leave so many gaping holes that bring conflicts between the Ministers and Ministers of State. In addition, the provision that “Ministers of State” cannot present Memos in Council, except with the permission of the Minister, is another anomaly. It means the discretion of the Minister of State is subsumed in the discretion of the Minister, yet both of them represent different States in Cabinet.
“It also follows that it would be difficult to assess the individual performances of the Ministers of State since their discretion is shackled under the discretion of the Ministers. Original ideas developed by a Minister of State are subject to clearance by another colleague in Cabinet before they can sail through for consideration by Council. The drafters of our Constitution obviously did not intend this.
“As a result, many Ministers of State are largely redundant, with many going to the office for symbolic purposes and just to while away the time. Files are passed to them to treat only at the discretion of the other Minister and the Permanent Secretary. Yet, the Ministers of State will receive either praise or condemnation for the successes or failures of such Ministries.”
The President will do himself a lot of good to have a look at the treatise.
During the mad scramble for the Aso Rock stool last year, not a few members of the Federal Executive Council threw their hats in the ring, the exorbitant N100 million price for the nomination papers by the All Progressives Congress, notwithstanding.
It was as if everyone in that team was high on something inexplicable, as all of them wanted to be the next Lord of the Aso Villa with such impunity that had never be seen in Nigeria. Then Nigerians were puzzled that such team members had an anti-corruption czar as the boss. N100 million price for expression of intention for the highest seat in the land became so ridiculously cheap for our Ministers to throw around. And nobody could even ask them to explain how they came about such money, including their boss, former President Muhammadu Buhari.
And when they were asked to put pen to paper for them to go and pursue their ambition, they “mercifully” recoiled. They suddenly remembered that their ‘spartan’ boss should be assisted in steering the wheel of the state. Till date, there is no record anywhere when Ministers who had been asked to go and even honoured with a valedictory ceremony turned around to return to their seats in a country of over 200 million men!
Never again will such affliction of absurdity rise the second time in Nigeria. Tinubu has all the chance to choose where to stand and write his name in gold by shopping for competent men and women to birth a new Nigeria.
Not only should Tinubu on behalf of bewildered Nigerians demand from his team their charter of action whenever he selects them, they should be reminded that the days of colourless performance as ministers are gone forever in Nigeria. Moves should also be made as soon as possible to ensure that the constitution is amended on the mandatory requirement of appointment of 42 Ministers representing the 36 States and six geopolitical zones to reduce the burden of cost of unwieldy governance on Nigeria.
Follow The Eagle Online Channel on WhatsApp
