President Muhammadu Buhari stuck to his cabinet for his first four years in office in spite of the obvious poor performance of most of them ministers. To many Nigerians, it is difficult to identify or recognise some ministers in the cabinet of President Muhammadu Buhari, almost four years after their call to service. Some of the ministers are not only unknown, their achievements are also not visible, either due to cluelessness or that they were busy pursuing political ambitions in their home states instead of justifying their ministerial appointments. Several of them were also active in cabal politics and the manoeuvrings in the Presidency, but fell flat in the ministries they were given charge over.
By Akanni Alaka
Most Nigerians will consider the recent widely published story that President Muhammadu Buhari will compile the list of persons he will appoint into his cabinet for second term ahead of his inauguration for a fresh term of office on May 29, a cheering one. The information, attributed to presidential sources, had indicated that the president will compile the list during his about-to-be-embarked-on vacation outside of the country. “It is expected that the president will compile the list during his vacation abroad. He doesn’t want anybody to interfere with it,” the newspapers reported with claims that the president had also rebuffed efforts by politicians, traditional rulers and other interest groups to influence his selection.
If indeed the president followed through on the claims in the reports, he would have, at least, avoided subjecting Nigerians to the agony of waiting for his ministerial list for six months like he did when he was first elected into office in 2015. “Buhari disappointed me on everything – number one, in terms of wasting so much time in choosing those he is going to work with,” Tope Fasua, an author, columnist, economist and the presidential candidate of Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party, ANRP, said.
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Eventually, the president submitted the list of his ministerial nominees to the Senate in two batches between September and October 2015. The list was essentially made up of chieftains of APC, who participated in the president’s election campaign or their nominees and his associates, dating back to when he began to contest for the presidency.
The lack of any major ‘outsider’ in the list left many Nigerians wondering why it took the president such a long time to submit their names to the National Assembly for confirmation. The Senate confirmed all the nominees, while the president swore in the new ministers on Wednesday, November 11, 2015.
Ministers for four years
The 36 ministers inaugurated then are Rotimi Amaechi, Minister of Transportation; Chris Ngige, Minister of Labour and Employment; Kayode Fayemi, Minister of Solid Minerals; Babatunde Fashola, Minister of Power, Works and Housing; Abdulrahman Dambazau, Minister of Interior; Aisha Alhassan, Minister of Women Affairs; Ogbonnaya Onu; Minister of Science and Technology; Abubakar Malami; Minister of Justice; Hadi Sirika, Minister of State for Aviation and Suleiman Adamu, Minister of Water Resources.
Others are Solomon Dalung, Minister of Youths and Sports; Ibe Kachikwu, Minister of State for Petroleum; Osagie Ehanire, Minister of State for Health; Audu Ogbeh; Minister of Agriculture, Udo Udo Udoma; Minister of Budget and National Planning; Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information; Amina Mohammed, Minister of Environment; Ibrahim Usman Jibril, Minister of State for Environment; Anthony Onwuka, Minister of State for Education; Muhammadu Bello, Minister of FCT; Adamu Adamu, Minister of Education; Okechukwu Enelamah; Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment and Aisha Abubakar, Minister of State for Trade, Industry and Investment.
Also sworn in by the president were Khadija Bukar Abba, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs; Claudius Daramola, Minister of State for Niger Delta; Geoffrey Onyeama, Minister of Foreign Affairs; Mansur Dan Ali, Minister of Defence; James Ocholi, Minister of State for Labour; Zainab Ahmed, Minister of State for Budget and National Planning; Mustapha Shehuri, Minister of State for Power; Heineken Lokpobiri, Minister of State for Agriculture, Professor Isaac Adewole, Minister of Health; Usani Usani Uguru, Minister of Niger Delta; Abubakar Bwari Bawa, Minister of State for Solid Minerals and Adebayo Shittu, Minister of Communications. President Buhari who assigned the petroleum ministry to himself has refused entreaties to reshuffle the cabinet since 2015.
But there have been changes in the cabinet as some of the ministers had opted out for other pursuits or as a result of death, as was the case with Ocholi, who died in a motor accident in 2016. He was replaced by Professor Stephen Ikani Ocheni.
Ministers who have willingly left the cabinet for other pursuits include the minister of state, foreign affairs, Hajiya Khadija Bukar Abba Ibrahim, who left to contest election in Yobe, her home state, and Ibrahim Jibril, who resigned as the minister of state for environment, to take up a traditional title.
Also, the former environment minister, Hajiya Amina Mohammed, resigned early 2017, following her appointment as United Nations Deputy Secretary General.
The now governor of Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, also resigned his appointment as minister of mines and steel on May 30, 2018 to pursue his political ambition, while Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, the finance minister, resigned on September 14, 2018, bowing to the scandal over forged National Youth Service Commission (NYSC) exemption certificate.
Also, the former women affairs minister, Senator Aisha Alhassan, quit the Buhari government after she was screened out of the 2019 Taraba State governorship contest by the All Progressives Congress National Working Committee.
Rather than use the opportunity of the departure to bring new faces to his cabinet, the president had allowed the ministers of state to continue to act as the substantive ministers, as in the case of ministries of solid mineral developments and the environment.
In other instances, he simply transferred the portfolios of the ex-ministers to other members of the cabinet, as was the case in the ministries of finance and women affairs.
Appraising Buhari’s ministers
The retention of the cabinet may indicate that the president believed that the ministers are doing very well in the delivery of the assignments they have been saddled with. If this is the case, Nigerians, who spoke to this newspaper last week certainly did not share the view of the president.
Many of those who spoke to The Nigerian Xpress in Abuja last week said except for a few, they found it difficult recalling the faces of the ministers, and even much less, their achievements in the past four years or thereabout. They lamented that the president had stuck to the ministers despite his promise sometime in 2017 to carry out a reshuffle of his cabinet.
For obvious reasons, top on the range of the non-performing members of the cabinet for residents of Abuja is the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mohammed Bello. The minister became a butt of jokes recently when he suspended his Director of Fire Service for inviting him to commission a set of substandard fire trucks. Most Abuja residents said the minister should have also sent himself on suspension since he had operated as a ‘ghost’ since his appointment, with most people unable to recall his face or name.
Sources told this newspaper that Bello seemed to be the most timid minister that has been appointed to oversee the FCT.
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According to them, the minister lacked initiative and had in the past budget cycles continued to return unspent funds to the national treasury, even when the capital city is degenerating and in need of urgent investment in various aspects of its infrastructure.
Indeed, critics say the most visible engagement of the minister is going to the Nnamdi Azikwe Airport to see off or receive the president. “Some people will tell you that they have never seen a minister, as inactive as the current FCT minister.”
Chido Onumah, a journalist, rights activist and media trainer told The Nigerian Xpress last week. He added that the rate of crime rate has been on the increase in the FCT, while there is general atmosphere of uncertainty.
“The streets of Abuja are no longer well lit, the problems of infrastructure, even roads- the number of roads that are being completed, and also, the question of how dirty the city has become. The minister himself is also not helping matters. He is not visible at all and he is unable to come out and communicate to the people and say, ‘this is happening. If you have any problems or challenges, these are some of the difficulties we are facing and so on,’” Onumah said.
In terms of visibility, the FCT minister is in the same league with his colleagues like Osagie Ehanire, the Minister of State for Health, Claudius Daramola, minister of state for Niger Delta, Anthony Onwuka, Minister of State for Education and Khadija Bukar Abba, the erstwhile minister of state for foreign affairs, whose names, and even much less engagements, as ministers are not known to many Nigerians. Those who spoke to The Nigerian Xpress said the four ministers might have been eclipsed by their substantive ministers.
But it is not as if the substantive ministers have also performed creditably too. Usani Usani, the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, who had in the past few months been engaged in the fight for the Cross River APC gubernatorial ticket is also considered one of the appointees, who have failed to live up to expectations in the president’s cabinet.
Critics pointed out that he had failed to complete the major projects in the region he inherited from the past administration while he has been busy playing politics. Such major projects include the dualisation of the East-West Road, which began in 2006, but was taken over by the ministry in 2010. It was also gathered that there has been no progress in some of the skill acquisition projects being executed by the ministry in various parts of Niger Delta.
In terms of performance, the Minister of Sports, Solomon Dalung, always likes to rate himself high, citing achievements recorded under him like the qualification of Nigeria’s Super Eagles for the World Cup in Russia, the emergence of a Nigerian as the World Scrabble champion in 2017 and the victories of Nigerian teams and athletes at continental and intercontinental competitions in games like Basketball, Beach Volleyball, Wrestling and Weightlifting, among others.
But critics insist that the victories recorded by Nigerian teams and athletes in the competition were in spite of the inactions of Dalung, who some stakeholders have described as the most unpopular individual to be appointed to superintend over the sports ministry.
Aside from his penchant for loose talks, critics also pointed out some of the mismanagement of the Nigerian sports that have taken place under him to include the poor performance of the country’s contingents to the Rio 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil where Nigerian athletes wore track suits top to participate in the opening ceremonies rather than the usual special traditional attires and interference in the leadership of the of the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) by needlessly reawakening the rivalry between contenders for its leadership and inability to pay match bonuses of the victorious Super Falcons at the last African Women Championship.
Dalung had blamed the failure on the fact that the Super Falcons were not expected to win though they went into the tournament, as defending champions and favourites.
“Don’t forget that nobody even knew the team would emerge victorious, if we were confident they would emerge victorious, all the Federation would have done is to plan for process of participation and entitlement,” he told State House correspondents at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
He also came under scathing criticisms by Nigerians when he suggested that the country should reconsider its participation in the FIFA World Cup.
“That competition stinks of corruption; Nigeria is too poor to waste money on it. The cup that we can win is the African Cup of Nations. There is nothing again that will take us to another man’s balcony in the name of the World Cup. We already have the Commonwealth Games and the Olympics. For these, we can attend such meets. But I am opposed to the World Cup. We don’t agree to it. Conspiracy in the World Cup is too much,” Dalung said.
Another failing of the minister, according to critics was that like his predecessors, he failed to institute a viable system of scouting for talents for the country.
The mining sector is well recognised in the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan of the Buhari’s administration as one of the strategic areas for the diversification of the economy.
The Ministry of Mines and Solid Minerals had as part of its bid to boost production and attract investments to the sector, introduced some incentives, including the N5 billion Nigerian Solid Minerals Development Fund, NSMDF, the N30 billion and the Natural Resources Intervention Fund, NRIF, for the promotion of exploration of new minerals and to strengthen the ministry’s regulatory capacity.
The ministry also strengthened the capacity of the Mining Cadastre office to issue licences to applicants in line with the Nigerian Mining and Minerals Act, 2007. The series of incentives led to resuscitation of activities in the mines, minerals and metals sector as attested to by the quarterly GDP reports of National Bureau of Statistics, though operators have continued to lament their inability to access the various financial incentives.
However, the major failing of the two ministers, Fayemi and Bwari, according to critics, was their failure to bring back the Ajaokuta Steel Company back to life, contrary to their promise. The ‘Modified Concession Agreement’ between Nigeria and Global Infrastructure Nigeria Limited, GINL, to end dispute over the ownership of Ajaokuta, and Nigeria Iron Ore Mining Company, NIOMCO has been mired in controversies.
The two ministers were virtually at war with the House of Representatives over the bid to concession Ajaokuta before the departure of Fayemi. The lawmakers had insisted that rather than concession the plant, which holds much promise for the country in terms of job creation and as enabler of growth of other sectors, the Federal Government should pump fresh funds to revive the steel complex.
On the other hand, the two ministers had insisted that the Federal Government would concession the plant rather than pump in fresh funds into it. This position has not changed despite the departure of Fayemi from the ministry. Like their predecessors, the ministers have failed in helping to unlock the promise of Ajaokuta for the country by resolving the controversial ownership tangles, which have bogged the company down for many years.
Adebayo Shittu, the Minister of Communications and Heineken Lokpobiri, the Minister of State for Agriculture also seemed content, pursuing the political ambitions in their home states than staying in Abuja to perform the assignments they have been saddled with as ministers.
Adebayo, who has been embroiled in NYSC certificate scandal, is especially considered a misfit for the telecommunications sector where much progress was recorded under the previous administration of President Goodluck Jonathan.
His proposal for establishment of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) University, using the Digital Bridge Institute (DBI) campuses in the geo-political zone was rejected by the Federal Executive Council, as poorly conceived.
Also ranked among the ministers whose usefulness to the country is questionable are the Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan Ali, and the Minister of Interior, Abdulrahman Dambazau. The degenerating security situation of the country as reflected in the inability to put an end to Boko Haram insurgency, increased activities of bandits and kidnappers as well as the high level of banditry, claiming hundreds of lives across the country are enough reasons to declare the two ministers complete failures.
All have ‘sinned’
There are other areas in which any of the ministers can be said to have fallen short of the expectations of Nigerians, according to Onumah, who added that the issue of performance or non-performance has to do with the generality of the cabinet and the government itself. He pointed out that there are many areas that certainly would need a lot of improvement and that a lot of things could have happened in the past four years.
He noted that with the rate of unemployment, the poverty level, the quality of education, the quality of infrastructure and, of course, more importantly, the still to be resolved poor supply of electricity to most homes. Nigerians have been querying the capacity of those appointed to superintend over the sectors to deliver on their assignments.
“There has been a debate in the past one month about the poor state of electricity sector – people have been complaining in this heat about the light situation. And to that extent, you want to question what is going on in the energy sector. That’s a big problem and the minister responsible for that has taken a lot of flak for not being able to deal with the issue. Remember, he was the minister who, before he came to power, said any government that is unable to solve power problem within six months ought to resign or something of that effect. And in four years, he has not been able to solve the electricity problem,” said Onumah.
“There is the crisis in the education sector – students have been on and off schools, the level of infrastructure, educationally is poor. Then, you also look at the labour sector, unemployment – the rate of unemployment has continued to increase. We are still struggling; the minimum wage problem is there. The economy is a big issue; people think they were better off than they were four years ago, that their purchasing power has been reduced while the prices of basic food items have skyrocketed.
“Even in the area of environment, the Ogoni cleanup, not much has happened as far as I can tell. You look at the general environmental climate in Nigeria, you look at something like tree planting and afforestation – the global warming is real, the heat wave is driving a lot of people crazy and nobody is talking about that. I think these are issues that a serious government, particularly, a minister of environment should be worried about. Even in the area of sports, even though we made a lot of progress, but in terms of like grassroots mobilisation, searching for talents, I don’t see any of that happening,” he added.
The buck stops on Buhari’s table
“The question you should ask first is, how has the president himself performed? There is also the question of budget and allocation of funds to the ministries. You can also not divorce the long delays that have characterized the passage of the budget under this administration like the others before it when assessing the performance of members of the cabinet of the president,” a top civil servant told The Nigerian Xpress.
He also pointed out that even when the budget is passed, there are serious shortfall between funds allocated for capital projects in the ministries, departments and agencies of government and what eventually gets to them. This, he pointed out, was because of the usual shortfall in government’s projected revenue and actual earnings.
Another problem he identified as inhibiting for the ministers is the procurement process, which, according to him, also delays the takeoff of projects.
He also cited the intervention of National Assembly, especially the different committees in the work of the MDAs as another factor that may not enable a minister to perform up to speed.
Onumah also agreed that the buck should stop at the doorstep of the president. “I am a firm believer in the principle of the buck stops at the table of the President. The ministers are where they are at the pleasure of the president. So, if they are not doing well, if they are not performing, I think the President bears as much responsibility as the minister because essentially, at the end of the day, they are a reflection of the policies and the programmes of the president and what he hopes and plans to achieve for the country,” he said.
Way forward for Buhari’s second term
Onumah advised President Buhari not repeat the mistake of waiting for months before sending the list of his ministerial nominees to the National Assembly. According to him, the president should be able to send the list of his cabinet members to the lawmakers within a week of the inauguration of the new National Assembly. The activist also advised that the list should consist of new faces, people with new ideas, who are ready to work and younger ones with more women in the cabinet.
“We see a president – I think that is his style – a president who gives a lot of leeway to his ministers, who doesn’t interfere, so to say – that’s the impression you get. In doing that, he needs to get people who are also independent-minded and who will not be waiting for the president to take action. He has to get people who are experienced, who know what their jobs entails who will be able to take decisive action on behalf of Nigerian people,” Onumah further advised.
