The whole essence of screening is defeated outrightly when you transmit names of ministerial nominees to the Senate without attaching their portfolios.
So what is the purpose of screening people without having an idea of the Ministries where they will be serving?
This old way of making wrong people ministers led to our recent experience when a minister that had spent eight years in office told Nigerians that at the point of his appointment he knew nothing whatsoever about the office he was being selected to occupy. And this is someone that went before the Senate and scaled through what has become the norm in screening at the hallowed chamber.
Let’s assume that the president put forward the name of the individual, but if the nominee was aware that it would be easier for the camel to pass through the needle’s eye than for him “an ignorant man” to pass through the Senate screening unscathed, he would do two things: either he declines and thanks the president for finding him worthy of the offer or he dusts up his books and buckle down to serious work.
Still from our recent experience, after all the ministerial nominees had gone through the Senate screening, they were all gathered before the president who was then acting like the lord of the manor as he chose to keep their individual ministries close to his chest. Whereas, here is an array of men and women with millions of things racing in their brains with all sorts of guess work. This is because a few minutes to their allocation of ministries, none of them had an inkling of what job they were being assigned.
Even if that has been the tradition for years, the peculiarity of this season calls for a radical rethink. Nigerians had waited in bated anticipation for the array of men and women President Bola Ahmed Tinubu would assemble to be his co-drivers in driving the destinies of more than 200 million Nigerians. After submitting the names of the nominees to the Senate, Femi Gbajabiamila, the Chief of Staff to the President, defended why his principal did not attach portfolios against the names of the nominees.
Speaking with newsmen after the submission of the list, Gbajabiamila said that while the screening will be ongoing, Tinubu and his team will have the opportunity to decide who fits best to a particular office. He said: “Yes, I mean for me that (attaching portfolios) would have been one way to go about it. It would have been a welcome development. As good as that sounds, it straitjackets the president to pigeonhole one person to an office or the other.
“What happens if you change your mind? Do you then bring the person back for screening again? Because the president is at liberty to change his mind. For instance, if I decide I want somebody as Minister of Labour and then after sending the name, later on, I decide that you know what, I didn’t know this about this person, this person would actually be better with another portfolio. Meanwhile, the Senate has screened that person for that initial portfolio. What happens then? Do you now re-screen the person?”
It is not even the case that Gbajabiamila does not know the right thing. He certainly spoke because of a tradition that has kept retarding the progress of the nation.
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Hear him again: “So a lot of these things have their merits and demerits, advantages and disadvantages. I like the idea of attaching portfolios. I actually do because it makes it necessary for the Senate to know exactly what you’re asking and what you’re looking for. But for now, it’s been thought wise that we stick to the tradition of sending the names and then whilst the screening processes are going on, allow Mr. President and his team to look at the portfolios and the characters and see how they fit. The first step that he has done is that these are people that can work wherever you put them, except specialised fields like Attorney General and what have you. But in the meantime, he believes most of them can fit in anywhere. And what’s important also is that Mr. President intends to separate portfolios or restructure the ministries in such a way that you might be hearing of new ministries that were not stand-alone ministries before. So the process continues.”
But Gbajabiamila’s argument is not that valid. Of course, every educated person that has also had experience of working in an organisation should be able to act as a minister. But there is what is called core competence or area of specialisation career wise.
That is why among millions of equally qualified fellows, the president goes head hunting certain individuals as those deemed suitable for his cabinet. Even among members of the same profession like medical care, they are all doctors in the first instance. But at a time, they then branch into areas of specialisation often as a result of interest or certain circumstances.
So also are footballers. We have strikers, full backs, wingers, goalkeepers, etc on the field. All the 11 manning their own areas for a free flowing game.
So also is governance. Every person should perform optimally at their area of strength. So it is puerile to argue that every Dick and Harry can handle a ministry. Not now that every Nigerian is yearning for change in all spheres of their lives.
And when the Senate started what they believed was screening, it became obvious that they didn’t have the correct tools to do their job properly. It will be unfair for anyone to say that the senators don’t know their job because when it came to the turn of people like Wale Edun and ex-Governor Nasir el Rufai to be screened, the duo underwent proper grilling. The senators were able to take them on because of the information they had at their disposal. Because they had the inkling that Edun could be in charge of Finance based on his background in matters of money, they drilled the gentleman thoroughly. They concentrated on money matters throughout his session with them. As they say, the man proved his mettle and did not disappoint. Those who didn’t know him well as Commissioner of Finance in Lagos State under then Governor Bola Tinubu would no longer think he was merely brought in “to come and chop” because of his closeness to the President. Through the Senate, Nigerians were able to glean from their future minister the stuff he was made of. Ditto El rufai when it came to his turn. Not a few Nigerians were impressed by the senators for a job well done in equally taking el-Rufai to task. He also did not perform badly as he marshalled his points.
But when it came to the turn of almost all the others, the senators turned the chamber to a jest bazaar. That was when they remembered to ask someone to render the second stanza of the National Anthem! The plight of women was even more pitiable. The senators became more interested in whom the woman is sleeping with in her matrimonial home! God would save anyone of them that is not so lucky to maintain a home.
It is not that the senators are not competent to interrogate whoever comes before them, but it would appear so if they don’t have the right information to do the job, which is attaching portfolios to the ministerial nomination. We believe that any man or woman that comes before the Senate will always be reminded that Nigerians will hold on to whatever they say during their screening and match it with how they go about doing their jobs and what they achieve at the end of the day.
That is what is called accountability.
