Between Buhari’s ministers and change

A BREATH of fresh air – this had been the expectation of Nigerians as they waited for President Muhammadu Buhari to unveil his ministerial nominees. In the light of the much-touted quest of the President to bring positive change to the polity, the citizens expected the him to appoint ministers who would help in injecting fresh ideas into governance that would improve the lot of the people.

When the President gave himself four months to search for those special ministers that would replicate his avowed passion for the country, the citizens had to wait for him, albeit grudgingly. Now that the deadline he gave himself has lapsed, it is clear that he has not judiciously used that long time he claimed to have needed to search for his ministers. If the citizens can brook his not completing the search for that long period, they definitely find it intolerable why most of those he has chosen as ministerial nominees have been in government.

It is either the President has deliberately kept Nigerians waiting or the search for credible and competent persons has really tasked his resources. Or the President might not have got the calibre of people he wanted and thus he has been compelled by his own deadline to choose those available to him. For if the President had known that these were the people he would make his ministers, there was no need pretending to search for those who were already known to him.

Even if the President refuses to acknowledge this, it is clear that a major consideration in the choice of his ministerial nominees is loyalty. The ministerial nominees are apparently people who have been loyal either to the President or his party. While it is good for the President to choose those who are loyal to him and his party, the issue he would need to resolve is whether loyalty to him and his party would automatically equate loyalty to the collective goal of rebuilding Nigeria. Or would he allow his ministers to sacrifice a commitment to the project of developing the country for the sake of loyalty to him and his party?

The President obviously sets great store by experience. This might have influenced his choice of former governors and others who have been in government as ministerial nominees. But the many years of the aborted development of the nation have shown that experience in government does not necessarily equate developmental capability. In fact, as we all know, one major problem with the country is that those in government have been recycled for too long. Thus no new ideas are brought to bear on governance since it is the same set of people who run the government.

Let’s take the former governors who made the ministerial list for instance. To what extent did they positively impact their states? It is one thing to shoot into public consciousness through populist stunts, it is another to come into public reckoning because of unassailably positive developmental impact. For on account of the rankling dearth of good leadership, the citizens are easily enamoured of developmental projects and programmes, no matter how miniscule. This is why when a governor builds a road for a community that has been rendered inaccessible for decades, the beneficiaries do not hesitate to serenade the leader’s magnanimity and administrative genius. The citizens do not bother themselves about the question of how much the government claims to have spent on the project and how much should be its actual cost.

Even if the disparity were so much that a road that ought to have cost N100 million to construct is now said to have cost N2 billion, the citizens would not bother themselves about all this mathematical sophistry as long as they have their road. And this is why the people are ever ready to defend their political leaders with their lives if the charge of financial misdeeds is levelled against them. And for some former governors, despite their frenziedly propagandised achievements, they could not tackle the simple challenge of rooting out touts from the states where they held sway for eight years. They left them to keep on harassing the residents of those states.

We take cognisance of the fact that as governors, some of these ministerial nominees had godfathers. This may explain why they could not perform, as they ought to. But then this exposes them to the charge of being used for the ruination of their states. Those who apparently had no godfathers to interfere with their performance did not fare better. Again, since most governors in the country are just handpicked by their godfathers who manipulate the electoral process to install their minions, it is not their personal pedigrees of hard work, transparency and passion for public service that recommend them for leadership in the first place. In most cases, it is because these governors were malleable and they could easily be used by their godfathers to divert the resources of their states. So how does all this translate to the administrative acumen that recommends these former governors as ministerial nominees that would bring positive change to the country?

The President must not lose the opportunity of salvaging the country to political patronage. What ought to inform his choice of ministers is the need to have men and women who would drive his promised change. Obviously, he cannot drive the change with men and women with fossilised ideas that have marooned the nation in its lack-lustre position. The positive change that Buhari promised the citizens can only be driven with people who can bring fresh ideas into governance.

The choice of Buhari’s ministerial nominees has only succeeded in reinforcing the need for the citizens to be wary about the promises of politicians. The citizens need to look beneath the smokescreen of altruism of the government and his party to arrive at the truth of whatever they say or do. If the citizens waited for four months and they are only served a list of those who have been in government as change agents, and the list is not even complete yet, then it is high time the citizens needed to be conscious of their responsibility of helping to rebuild the nation. The support of Nigerians Buhari has been enjoying so far is derived from the perception of him as not a typical Nigerian politician who is weaned on cant and humbug.

But since it is becoming clear that the citizens are mistaken about this perception, they have to be more vigilant and get more involved in the task of rebuilding the nation. This task must not be left to the wisdom of one person who may flounder and represent his whim as the ultimate rule of good governance.
• Dr. Onomuakpokpo is a member of The Guardian Editorial Board.