After cabinet appointments, political attention shifts to 2019 and beyond

FEW talking points arose from the federal cabinet exercise now nearing conclusion with most of the motley 37 nominees cleared by the Senate, including the problem nomination of Mr. Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi.

The Senate screened the controversy-circled nominee last week. His screening had put off three times. He had performed the unlikely feat of combining his second term governorship job of immediate past Rivers State governor and President Muhammadu Buhari’s campaign director attracting to himself a sizeable amount of ill will and ill-wind from his many opponents.

But, he was bound to be screened, despite the opposing Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) filibuster. The PDP Senate caucus need not be difficult where members of the Senate had already compromised their initial seeming resolve to insist that President Buhari present his ministerial list accompanied along with designated portfolios.

Without portfolios attached to names, the screening became an ugly guesswork where Senators reduced questions to wooden assumptions, as in “assume you were appointed the
Attorney-General…” Buhari, however, carried out the full constitutional expectation of naming a minister from each state, in which it seemed that he had succumbed to pressure from individual stake holders, interest groups, who had insisted that it was “mandatory” and individual state “entitlement.”

Saraki, Kaduna and Sokoto state governors, Malam Nasir el-Rufai and Aminu Tambuwal are allegedly already posturing. Even former governors of Kano State, Muhammed Shekarau and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, now a senator cannot be ruled out. Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar is said to be waiting and watching the scenes with keen interest. In other words, the North will be gunning for a stretch of three terms or twelve years in the current run. It would then wait to see what happens from there.

Without designated portfolios, senators were in no position to do any background work on nominees. Eventually, when portfolios would be announced, the polity could be heated up again over “blue-chip” posting for some and “insulting” placement for others.

In 1999, Udoma Udo Udoma, incidentally now a minister-designate, was named Minister of State for Environment by former President Olusegun Obasanjo. He had been elected into the Senate for his first term and felt a junior minister and in “inconsequential” and “backwater” department like environment of all places was beneath him. He rejected the posting and went back to his seat in the Senate.

This time, all the ministers-designate welcomed their nomination and enthusiastically faced screening. Besides, Khadija Aba Ibrahim, the most ranking female member of the House of Representatives, no other ministerial nominee came from the National Assembly.

In all, the exercise left some old questions still unanswered. When will this nation be governed with a small, compact purpose-driven, strategic government? Is a minister for each state a constitutional entitlement or just a constitutional guide against any state or sets of states producing more than one minister each where any other or some other states produced none?

Could the spirit behind the framing of sections 147 sub-section 1-3 and section 302 of 1999 Constitution be to impose one minister per state; that is 36, whereas it imposed no time frame within which to name them and had not imposed equal tenure, which is at the Presidents discretion?

When will the bloated federal bureaucracy be broken for power to be divested to states?
Buhari, Arewa North and politics of federal appointments
The President had taken nearly 100 days to appoint inner members of his government comprised of the National Security Adviser (NSA), Service Chiefs, his Chief of Staff, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Director General of the Directorate of State Services (DSS), National Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Comptroller General of Customs and that of Immigration, MD of Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON).

Also appointed were the Managing Director of Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Presidential Spokesmen and handymen and the Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). More than 96 per cent of the appointments were from the Arewa Muslim north, whereby the President played a northern card to reward his primary base.

His ministerial appointments took about five months. The thinking behind the structuring of his government seems to have been laid soon after he was elected last March. Here, for example, is the thought of former Zamfara Senator Saidu Dansadau as the Daily Trust quoted him in April. He spoke following the controversies that besieged the National Assembly election of its principal officers, whereby Bukola Saraki was elected Senate President contrary to the wishes of the leadership of the APC and Yakubu Dogara emerged Speaker of House of Representatives.

Dansadau said: “Nigerians should take note of the voting trend since independence. In fact, since the 1950s, the North Central per se had never voted in the manner it did along with the other parts of the North as it did at this particular time. These are the kind of things we have been looking for, a long time.
“Various initiatives have been put in place in order to see that northerners form wherever they are, from the 19 states, become one as far as voting is concerned. We are not saying 100 per cent of northerners should be in one political party but that northerners should have one voice, they should decide and dictate the politics of Nigeria, like it has been before independence and even during the First Republic because of the numerical strength of the North.

But of recent we became divided so we became so vulnerable. But God in His infinite wisdom and mercy used the goodwill of General Muhammadu Buhari and we have gotten the kind of unity that we have been yearning for, for so long. We have realized this dream now. So, now that we have achieved the unity we long for because of Buhari’s goodwill, it is only fair that we make some efforts to consolidate these gains because General Buhari will not be the president forever.

So that after him, we have consolidated on this goodwill and we will be able to grow this unity, political cooperation, electoral cooperation from strength to strength so that the North will as much as possible dictate the political landscape of the country and what happens in Nigeria as it used to do.

 Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir El-rufai .

This is necessary because my fear is that not that Senator Ahmed Lawan is qualified, he is very much qualified, but in third world countries where there are lots of crises and ethnicity and religious group as much as possible will feel satisfied with the balancing of power. That is all we are saying.

And for the North East, they really deserve the Speakership. There is no doubt going by their number and what they contributed to the success of the APC going by the candidate contesting for the position, they truly deserve a very important office in this dispensation. There is no doubt about that. But I feel no sacrifice is too much as far as the unity of this country is concerned. No sacrifice is too much as far as it concerned the growth and the continuity in power of APC. So, in order not to take a decision that will make the strength of APC wane so quickly, I think regional groups and individuals should learn to make sacrifices.
“In fact, where I fault the leadership of the APC is why should the leadership do zoning in piecemeal? Why should they zone the Speakership to the South West? When you are taking the decision, why didn’t they take the entire zoning together? That was what the PDP did in the past and since it is good, the APC should emulate it. If any crisis arises, as a result of the zoning I will blame the leadership of the APC. Why because if they had sat down from the word go to zone all the positions, this problem wouldn’t have arisen.”

It is the celebration of Buhari’s electoral victory, as political victory for the North and the region’s opportunity to control and enjoy power at the centre. The North comprised of North West, North East and North Central (also called middle-belt or northern minorities) had yearned to be seen and to operate as one bloc for political advantage. The region had allied with the South West thus getting Buhari elected.

Although the APC leadership had zoned Senate President to North East and Speaker to South West with Ahmed Lawan (Yobe) and Femi Gbajabiamila (Lagos) were respectively lined up to take them, Saraki (Kwara, North West) and Dogara (Bauchi, North East) took them. And for two months, the party had erupted.

Saraki, assuming the Senate President in the midst of much controversy and looking a marked man from the start, he has thus far managed to weather the storm. He gained considerable composure and momentum from the presiding ministerial screening despite that Senators were in no position to probe nominees to any serious depth.
Northern game plan

All too obviously, the North, which now controls and enjoys the four years of Buhari’s first term won’t be satisfied with that. It won’t. On the contrary chances that as the septuagenarian President Buhari near the end of his first term would be prevailed upon to do the famed Nelson Mandela bit of one term only and quit for a younger Northern successor.

Saraki, Kaduna and Sokoto state governors, Malam Nasir el-Rufai and Aminu Tambuwal are allegedly already posturing. Even former governors of Kano State, Muhammed Shekarau and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, now a senator cannot be ruled out.
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar is said to be waiting and watching the scenes with keen interest. In other words, the North will be gunning for a stretch of three terms or twelve years in the current run. It would then wait to see what happens from there.