Troubleshooting is an experimental process of thinking outside the box to ascertain what can work as well as what the prospective end-users think. It is an embedded consultative system of sampling people’s opinion. A more explicit method is conducting focus group discussions as a
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form of opinion sampling and the creation of policy ownership through informal consultation. The two methods of troubleshooting and focus group discussion are aimed at the saturation of critical constituencies. After producing a policy, it must be monitored and managed to conclusion.

The monitoring and management of policies can start with a test run which is usually a small scale experimentation. The system seeks to discover the strengths and weaknesses of a policy in actual operation. The test run provides a final opportunity to put the policy to test in action before its public launching. It also affords the policy Adviser the opportunity to correct errors and weaknesses that manifest in the trial operationalisation of the policy. All the above steps are necessary and should be painstakingly taken because a public policy error is very expensive to an elected political regime. In fact, it may be very critical to the electoral survival of the regime.
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One of the weaknesses of the policy advisory system is the fact that the Advisers hardly coordinate their activities or see the need for cooperation. It is very important that the policies of a regime should be synchronised for effect. Advisers must cooperate to align policies for synergy because the policies of a regime must not work at cross-purposes. Advisers must work together as a team because administrative departmentalization is merely for convenience rather than for functionality. It is in fact advisable that a regular meeting of Advisers be convened for experience sharing and general policy coordination. Advisers must come to the understanding that they serve the same principal.

Their meetings should address the inevitable process of policy interaction which they can manage through the process of policy triangulation. This will lead to proper policy integration issuing from the same government. The advisory system in Nigeria at the federal and State level lacks coordination. There is no meeting point for the Advisers to the President with the Advisers to the various Ministers. This has a tendency to occasion leakage of funds, policy overlaps or duplication and gross under-capacity utilisation. These issues call for attention.

How Advisers are as critical as their offices. Advisers when carefully selected are essential for an effective government. However, there are many socio-political constraints in the recruitment of competent Advisers. Some constraints are inherent in the personality of the principals while others are systemic, statutory or constitutional. A principal who is not given to standards is likely to opt for mediocrity either by being nepotistic or clannish. Incompetent principals cannot recruit competent officers. What determines the quality of recruitment by a principal comes under the minimax rubric, namely that the principal who makes his own level of efficiency and competence the minimum requirement for recruitment of Advisers will recruit excellent people. On the other hand, a principal who makes his own level of efficiency and competence the maximum requirement will invariably recruit mediocrities and sycophants. Such a principal is comfortable with such officers because they meet his mark. In such cases where the criterion of recruitment is not competence, it is illogical to expect competent performance.
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The recruitment of Advisers is also affected or even dictated by systemic factors. In a plural society, members feel that their protection, welfare and share of public amenities is a function of their representation in government. This attitudinal disposition is a product of ethnic mutual distrust that no ethnic unit can be an honest trustee of another ethnic group. The result is that the government is divided for the people by the people such that the people think that the interest of each ethnic group can only be protected by members of that group. Sometimes this feeling is so deeply ingrained that it is written into the statute books and even into the constitution. That is the case of Nigeria. In local parlance, Nigerians want it implemented by demanding government presence in their localities. In Nigeria, therefore, the people perceive the Federal Government as the product of what the relevant invisible mental ethnic slice represents. In this sense, therefore, the Federal Government is local. While the abstract division of government along ethnic lines ostensibly sets out to ensure social equity and determines the location of the individual in the polity, it is responsible for the sub-optimal performance of government. Every appointment is located in the mental construct of the ethnic slice of the federation.

The above constraints notwithstanding, the principal still has to recruit personnel into these and other positions. As President Tinubu is now poised to recruit personnel into offices, he must carry out the functions to the best of his ability in the best interest of the country and mindful of the fact that he is not immune from blame.

The late Timi of Ede, HRH Tijani Oyedokun, Agbonran II summarised Palace 101 to me in one sentence: “The Palace is a refuse dump”. All and sundry, rich and poor, young and old throw, and are entitled to throw refuse there. That is also a defining right of democracy. What reduces the dumping of refuse is to continue to do what is right rather than what is good. Right and good have their appropriate occasions. Another antidote and consolation is that: “Abuses do not break bones”. The Principal must therefore not be tempted or driven to the other extreme which my first year Political Science teacher, Prof James O’Connel summarised in another sentence: “Once a king receives the staff of office, he no longer gets good advice”. Good or bad, everybody praises the king’s actions. Unfortunately, when the King falls, everybody says “We warned him!!” It is only power that makes people powerful. The Principal must always remember that it is the Adviser that is rich in options, adds value and honestly speaks truth to power, that is the sincere, competent and loyal Adviser.
Concluded
Prof. Ayoade, mni, is Emeritus Professor of Political Science,University of Ibadan.
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