More than 40 days after the inauguration of his ministers and more than 120 days after President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was sworn in, the consultative Federal Executive Council (FEC), the highest decision-making body for Nigeria, has convened only once, on August 28, 2023. The pitfalls of this government’s failure to meet regularly to brainstorm on national issues are apparent in the uncoordinated manner in which its business is being conducted, as well as the way some ministers have embarked on self-glorifying but not well-thought-out measures in recent weeks. It is even feared that without proper briefing and cross-fertilisation of ideas that the FEC forum provides, many of Tinubu’s ministers may actually be idling away behind large tables while enjoying the perks of the office.
Though the Presidency, in reaction to Daily Trust’s exclusive story on this subject matter, claimed the president may have his own novel style of holding the FEC meeting, the constitution is clear on the imperative of such meetings. Section 148 (2) states clearly that, “The President shall hold regular meetings with the Vice-President and all the Ministers of the Government of the Federation for the purposes of (a) determining the general direction of domestic and foreign policies of the Government of the Federation; (b) co-ordinating the activities of the President, the Vice-President and the Ministers of the Government of the Federation in the discharge of their executive responsibilities; and (c) advising the President generally in the discharge of his executive functions other than those functions with respect to which he is required by this Constitution to seek the advice or act on the recommendation of any other person or body.”
The constitution envisages that the FEC meeting is the avenue for charting a pathway for the management, growth and development of Nigeria; a forum where every state of the federation is represented and where national issues are examined from various contexts, perspectives, and prisms.
Part of the excuses put forward by the Presidency for the government’s failure to reconvene for FEC meetings since August 28 is the delay in holding a retreat for the ministers and the president’s travels abroad to attend international engagements. In this age of information and communication technology, the president could inaugurate a retreat virtually or delegate some responsibilities to his vice president to conduct the retreat.
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Essential government business must not be kept on hold on account of the absence of the president. In the last dispensation, FEC meetings were not suspended over the absence of ex-President Muhammadu Buhari, as ex-Vice President Yemi Osinbajo would readily step in to preside over deliberations by the council. This is a positive tradition handed down from administration to administration. This government cannot abridge it.
Looking at the state of the Nigerian economy and the pains that have accompanied the hike in petrol prices and the devaluation of the naira, the FEC members ought to hold regular meetings and even set up committees to tackle diverse aspects of the challenges. This is not happening. Most of the policy pronouncements to cushion the effects of the fuel price increase have not seen the light of day, and this may not be unconnected to the failure of government ministers to hold regular meetings.
It is not enough for the president to receive regular briefings from his appointed ministers; policies being implemented by ministers should be debated and subjected to input from other ministers, instead of running with instructions that reflect the perspective of the president’s ‘vision’ alone. If such an approach to governance is entrenched, the country will be courting a situation that will not only slow down the wheel of governance but could also lead to the implementation of half-baked policies and measures.
Though in many states in Nigeria, state governors hardly hold executive council meetings with their commissioners, the president cannot afford to imitate such a method of misgovernance at the federal level. Rather, he must take the model from advanced democracies, like in the United States, where the president meets with his cabinet once a week. Even if Tinubu assumes his kitchen cabinet has the capacity to run the government without FEC meetings, Nigerians have seen through the capacity of his team in how policy measures are going awry and out of control.
We, therefore, call on President Tinubu to prioritise the council meeting without delay to ensure that all major policies are critically examined by those he has assembled for that job before such decisions are implemented. If he will not be available to preside over such meetings, he must delegate that role or power to Vice President Kashim Shettima. Nigeria should not be managed by the rule of thumb, as seems to be the case at the moment.
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