What is a ministerial nomination without drama, intrigues, surprises, betrayals and disappointments? Since President Bola Tinubu was elected, Nigerians have been in anticipation of ‘The List,’ the part two of the soap opera instalment that began eight years ago when President Muhammadu Buhari’s reticence birthed the first instalment.
That time, Nigerians endured a long wait for The List because the president was reportedly being meticulous about his cabinet and those to be appointed into it. The wait stretched and stretched until everyone expected a list of angels and beatific saints to be submitted to the Senate. But after six months, the biggest surprise was how utterly disappointing the vaunted list was. The only thing that matched that disappointment was the performance of that cabinet over the two terms of that administration.
This time, we did not have to wait six months, thanks to a constitutional amendment that allowed the president only 60 days, from his swearing-in, to submit a list of nominees to the Senate. Despite assurance by his aides that President Tinubu would do so well before the deadline, he ended up beating the deadline by a few hours. That, however, is not the drama. I mean, there were surprises with regard to the names that appeared or didn’t appear on the list. The biggest surprise was perhaps the nomination of Dr Maryam Shetty, whose nomination then birthed the biggest drama around The List.
This drama centred around the euphoria and controversy around her nomination and, bizarrely, the last-minute withdrawal of her nomination while she was on the grounds of the NASS for her screening. The drama then took on an even more petty-minded slant when the immediate past governor of her state, with whom she had been pictured before, appeared in a video mocking her and celebrating her replacement in a way no governor or former governor of a state should have done to a person he had governed.
That particular nomination has raised many questions. The pre-eminent being how did she get on the list in the first place. I suppose Dr Shetty and the people who pulled the strings for her would be best placed to answer that question. We all know, as is the nature of politics, that horse-trading, secret deals, gives and takes are the stock in trade. Dr Shetty’s work at the State House Clinic in the villa has given her access to influential persons in government, from as early as the government of Goodluck Jonathan, to Buhari and now to Tinubu. She has added to this access, her political acumen, participated actively in politicking and mobilising support for the various candidates she has thrown her weight behind. As a social entrepreneur (yes, that is a real thing) she has built a political portfolio of access and contacts that helped land her on the list.
The other question revolves around competence. Despite her education, as a qualified physiotherapist, many critics have spoken of her as if she were a child because, apparently, she is young. From her home state of Kano, a lot of the criticism also stems from her being single. By virtue of her age and education, constitutionally, she is qualified to occupy even the office of the president. At 44, there is no basis to address her as “yarinyan nan”, as we have seen critics do.
In this same country, we have seen a 31-year-old General Yakubu Gowon become president, rule over the 51 million populace of the country at the time for nine years and still retire, or rather was retired before he was Dr Shetty’s age. He was replaced by a 37-year-old General Murtala Muhammed, who was later replaced by a 39-year-old General Olusegun Obasanjo.
Recently, Jacinda Arden resigned as the Prime Minister of New Zealand before she turned 43. Her five years in office created the Jacindamania phenomenon, which made New Zealand increasingly popular globally. She enjoyed mass support at first, which later waned before her resignation, but she also demonstrated great competence in managing tensions between the different types of people in her country.
So, while Dr Shetty’s age cannot be a reasonable criticism of her nomination, one criticism against her that might hold ground is that she has no experience in public administration. But she won’t be the only person on that list without such experience. So what is the problem?
The main question is not about her competence or qualification but about how she ended up on the list with the president not knowing much about it, if reports are to be believed. If she made it to that list, the expectation is that the president will have a comprehensive report about her and what she could bring to his cabinet. Otherwise, what have they been doing in the 60 days before?
The formation of a cabinet is not just an opportunity to reward loyalists who helped the president win an election but it usually is a key task that will determine the policy direction of the administration and what kind of government the president intends to run. The ministers will be the president’s lieutenants in the battle to rescue Nigeria and if names are going to be snuck onto such high-profile list, as is being claimed, without the president being fully aware, then there is something extremely concerning about the goings-on in the villa. And these are just early days.
But the most damaging part of all this is the drama that trailed the withdrawal of her name, apparently orchestrated by her former state governor and now national chairman of her party, the APC, Abdullahi Ganduje, who admitted to playing a major part in it. He claims that social media reaction that trailed her nomination caused the president to question him about her, where he then told the president he doesn’t know her. I thought the selective social media reaction they chose to pay attention to was particularly interesting, having ignored the ones that trailed and continued to trail the leaked dollar-stuffing videos. That did not stop Ganduje from being made the party chairman, did it? But it was the pettiness in the viral video showing the governor celebrating Dr Shetty’s replacement, mocking her while lauding her friend, who had now taken her place on the list, that is particularly disappointing.
The manner in which the party chairman led his supporters to mock the former nominee was unbefitting of a person of his standing. Such glee and jeer would have made more sense, even if not acceptable, if the vanquished was someone in the calibre of his arch-nemesis, Rabiu Kwankwaso. But for a lowly nominee whose crime was to be female, single and ambitious is ungentlemanly.
As a former governor of the state and chairman of the party, he was supposed to take the fatherly role. As a politician, of course, it is understandable that he would want to influence appointees from his state to shore up his hold on the state, especially considering his fierce duel with Kwankwaso, and clearly, Dr Shetty was not from his corner (she is, in his own words, Abuja-based). But having succeeded in replacing her, he should have addressed her as party leader, a father figure, and not celebrate this misfortune of hers with such evident puerile glee.
Being a leader entails far more than having your way and implanting your loyalists in the caucus, but it is also reflected in how you treat the people you pushed aside to have your way. As Malcolm S. Forbes is reputed to have said, “You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.” In this test, Ganduje has fallen short yet again.
Overall, the mismanagement of this nomination is a worrying indictment of the presidency and the APC as a whole. About how the Senate, and the Senate president, managed the whole screening exercise, well, that is another kettle of fish altogether.
