47 days without ministers

One newspaper has already resorted to one of Nigerian media’s old tactics of stampeding leaders to take action. At the weekend it had bold kicker to a front-page story headline which stated: Ministerial List Delay: Day 48. It is a tactic out of the Chibok girls’ abduction book, when many newspapers began counting the number of their days in captivity on their front pages. Most have since stopped but for those still counting, the number of days is approaching 2,000.

In 2006, soon after President Obasanjo’s Third Term bid collapsed, Leadership newspaper started counting the days to the end of his tenure. It later sharpened the message from number of days left to Quit Notice. It was a tormenting message; an aide to a second term governor told me at the time that his boss was very angry with the quit notice. He told his aides, “Some bastards are already counting the days left for us!”

President Buhari could shorten this delay by sending a list, any list at all, to the Senate for confirmation. Afterall, there are four steps before a person becomes a minister. First, the president must nominate him or her. Next, Senate must screen and confirm the person. Only then can the president appoint the person, and the minister cannot even assume the office until there is a swearing in. The process can be aborted at any stage, as in 2007 when President Yar’adua nominated Godsday Orubebe, who was confirmed by Senate. However, when he turned up for the swearing-in, security agents politely told him to go away.

A minister too can walk away from the appointment, as Senator Udoma Udo Udoma did in 1999. Though he was a serving senator, President Obasanjo made him a minister but on the day of swearing-in, when he was assigned as Minister of State for Environment, Udoma promptly walked out and returned to the Senate. Then also, the president can remove a minister at any time. In 2008, after only one year on the job, President Yar’adua dropped 20 ministers in one fell swoop, the most brutal cabinet reshuffle within the same administration in Nigeria’s history.

Buhari should not therefore agonise too much about sending a list to the Senate, which is only the first of many revocable steps in a ministerial appointment. It is not like the scene in Alex Hailey’s novel The Final Diagnosis, where a surgeon who was doing an operation to amputate a leg hesitated just before he cut the nerve. It is the first irrevocable step in amputation. The surgeon hesitated briefly and then used a scissors to sever the nerve. After that he proceeded fast with the amputation because there was no going back.

The president said last week that he was under pressure to release the cabinet list. Off the newspaper pages and social media screens, there are only a few people in Nigeria who could walk up to the president and advise him to release the list. One of them, for statutory reasons, is Senate President Ahmed Lawan, who was quoted to have said at plenary last week that the list would land before the end of the week. When it did not, he said he was misquoted. I suspect that in their private meeting, Lawan offered Buhari his personal example, in which he appointed a Media Adviser and when it caused an uproar, he dropped him.

Now, being under pressure to do something cannot be the reason why there is a delay in doing it. It is more likely instead that the president is grappling with several decisions all at once and has not been able to resolve some of them. Among the issues up in the air are the cabinet’s size. Buhari told APC’s NEC in December 2017 that he was going to expand the cabinet, though he did not name a figure. There must be pressure to fulfil that pledge now. The snag is that some ministries may have to be split in order to accommodate more ministers, which will hurt the Administration’s image of frugality.

Another issue is whether former ministers should return in large numbers. During the cabinet’s valedictory session on May 28, Buhari praised its members profusely. He is therefore expected to reappoint many of them but not all, because many Nigerians do not share his assessment with respect to some of the former ministers. There were a few that were neither seen nor heard in four years. Or maybe the list is delayed in order to fill the women’s quota. Not only women; the president who signed the Not Too Young To Run constitutional amendment bill is expected to make a statement by appointing some youngsters into the cabinet so they can start running.

Maybe the list is delayed by the alleged clamour of former governors to become ministers. In 2003, President Obasanjo appointed Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso as Defence Minister, a recognition of his political weight as a former governor. This became an even bigger issue in Nigerian politics in 2007 when a large number of governors completed their second terms in office. They were still young and vigorous and they wanted more action, so some went to the Senate while President Yar’adua appointed Ebonyi’s Sam Egwu as Education Minister. In 2008 he appointed former Kebbi State governor Mohammed Adamu Aliero as FCT Minister. President Jonathan later made ex-Kano Governor Ibrahim Shekarau his Education Minister while Buhari in turn made Chris Ngige, Kayode Fayemi, Babatunde Fashola and Ogbonnaya Onu ministers, one of them a super minister.

APC governors who just completed their two terms in office and are prominent candidates for cabinet posts are Kashim Shettima, Ibrahim Gaidam, Abdulazeez Yari, Abiola Ajimobi, Rochas Okorocha, Ibikunle Amosun and Rauf Aregbesola. M. A. Abubakar, Mohammed Jibrilla Bindow and Adewunmi Ambode, APC governors who lost their second term bids, are also candidates for minister. The cabinet could benefit from former governors’ experience and political reach, especially those of them with a rich record of accomplishments in their states.

The president said last week that he accepted nominees from the party and other people in 2015 but that this time, he will appoint only those he knows. This is strange. There are at least 70 million adults in Nigeria. Among these, hundreds if not thousands of men and women have the qualifications, experience, talent, composure, temperament and comportment to hold every conceivable ministerial post. How many of these people can the president possibly know? Sure he has been around in Nigeria for many decades and has met a lot of people at school and during his long career in the military and in public service, including as governor of the country’s largest state, minister of the richest Federal Ministry, GOC of a top military formation, military Head of State, Chairman of PTF and politician for the last 17 years. Still, he might not know more than a few hundred people by name. Restricting the choice only to people personally known to him is therefore a risk.

Maybe the president is thinking of loyalty. Well, it is not only the people he knows that are loyal to him. At least 15 million Nigerians voted for him in the last election, a big sign of loyalty even though they did not know him personally. Besides, human beings change with situations and a person who has been loyal for many years may suddenly become disloyal. Another issue that the president must be grappling with is the statutory requirement for national spread. He must choose at least one minister from each state. He might know someone in every state, but the person might not be the most suitable to occupy a ministerial position. Since time has been lost already, Buhari should fire off a list to Senate right away. If there are mistakes, he can correct them later.