Chief Henry Ajomale, a former Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Lagos is also a member of the Governance Advisory Council (GAC) in the state. In this interview with Weekend Trust, Ajomale who is a close ally of the President believes the appointees are like old wine which gets better with time.
How will you rate the president’s men?
Those who are working with him now are the only persons that understand him and understand his vision and how to carry out this vision. I am talking of some of them who are working with him now, I am not saying all of them because many of them have not worked for him before, so they would not know where his mind is going, they may not understand his working and of course those ones would lag behind and there is no way they can catch up with him.
But to narrow the discussion to those who worked with him 20 years ago when he was governor, we still have quite a number of them still making the decisions, would you say they are the right people to be doing that?
I will say yes, because you see they are like old wine, the older they become the better for them. At that time, we were all young but everybody has worked in different places after that. Their understanding of life then was not as sharp as now and the responsibility they had then isn’t like now. Take Wale Edun for example, he has been in an investment company since he left. You will find out that he is still up to date with all the records, both international and domestic. And Olayemi Cardoso (CBN Governor) was Chairman of CitiBank, so he is also up to date in what they do.
Like Dele Alake that was taken to Solid Minerals, the president must have his reasons but I think he could have been better in Information and Strategy than where he is now. But why he put him there, there must be a reason, I don’t know.
So, these are the people that worked with us then when he was governor of Lagos that I can vouch for. Many of them who are there now are representing their states, I don’t know them apart from those three.
But the president has been criticised for surrounding himself with people who worked with him in the past, wondering why they should be the ones making decisions 20 years after…
I don’t think so, out of those who worked with him in the past, only three of them are in the cabinet. Femi Gbajabiamila (Chief of Staff to the President) who was in the House of Representatives was not with us then, so he could not have surrounded himself with only those people. The cabinet is about 30 something, if he takes three out of those ones to be in the cabinet, I think he is generous enough because the others are those representing their states and that is what the law says. You can’t pick everybody from one state. One must represent a state and most of them have not worked with him before. They must have been introduced to him and he felt that he could mould them. He made some of us too and that was why we were able to move forward. Lagos is only one state out of 36 states. I believe there is nothing wrong with those three, they are tested and trusted and have carried out their assignments before. Lagos was like a mini Nigeria then and we were borrowing some states money and these were the people that made this possible. Wale Edun was Commissioner for Finance and Cardoso was Budget and Planning, today they have accumulated more experience than before. That is why I said they are like old wine. So, anyone saying he surrounded himself with those that worked with him before, that cannot be true because if he has just three in the cabinet, that can’t be considered a majority.
Isn’t it high time we injected more people into the kitchen cabinet considering the hardship in the land?
The whole problem can’t be blamed on anybody so far because anybody who comes in feeling that he is going to take over a government and doesn’t know the problem he is going to inherit, when that person comes in and he sees the mountain of problems, he would have to confront those challenges. He doesn’t have to shy away from them and he would first solve the problems on ground before laying the foundation. I am sure that is what is going on now that people should understand.
President Tinubu is someone I know well and I know he loves the people and it is a challenge to anybody, however, you asked for it, you looked for the challenge and whatever is coming out of it, he should be ready for it. But the problem is far more than what is expected, then you have to be an extraordinary person to be able to perform.
It is only when you correct the anomaly that is on ground which is not something done yesterday or day before yesterday, these are things that accumulated over the years that had been covered up, that a lot of people are not aware of. So if he is going to address this, a lot of people are going to be the victims but it is not going to be forever, things will settle down.
People believe most of these people in the kitchen cabinet are only from one section of the country?
No, I don’t think so. Even as a governor he didn’t do that, he had Igbos, Hausas working in the cabinet. He is not somebody who cares about where you come from. He wants to know your intellect, ‘if I give you this assignment can you do it,’ that is what he cares about. He doesn’t care where you come from but he wants you to carry out his assignment whether you are a Yoruba man, Hausa, Igbo, Ibibio. He cannot do everything himself as a president he needs some people to work for him.
So, if they introduce some people to him and they mess up, you can’t blame the president when he fires them and people say he is sacking them because they are not Yoruba.
What would be your advice to those working with him?
The National Security Adviser (NSA) is Hausa man and he is very close to the President, he has been his friend for a long time, they have always been together.
I think that he trusts many of them in his cabinet and if you don’t trust people you cannot just appoint them into the cabinet. It must be somebody you trust and somebody who believes in your vision that you appoint and that is why you are in the same party. Those who are not even in his party, he found them useful and brought them in, those in the PDP and other parties, he brought them in because he found them useful. For example, Minister of FCT, Nyesome Wike, everybody is saluting him for the good job he is doing in Abuja and Wike is not a Yoruba man, so if he finds you to be useful, whoever you are, it is not the ethnicity that he is concerned about.
But what should the president do to address the hunger and the cost of living crisis in the country?
I think some of the appointees are working and some of them are not working. Without pain, there is no gain. These things have accumulated for years and people are careless about it. Now that the world is going through an economic crisis, it is not only in Nigeria that we have economic problems, go to the UK or anywhere, however, this is a temporary problem.
Again, we should consider that it is not the creation of the poor, it is the creation of the rich and the rich will suffer more than the poor. So they must channel their programmes towards enriching the poor, rather than the rich.
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