With New Cabinet, Buhari Sends Mixed Signals

Nseobong Okon-Ekong writes that the blame game that has dogged the steps of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration dominated the recent unveiling of ministerial portfolio

The often repeated pieces of communication which have highlighted the negative side of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration appeared to dominate the recent unveiling of ministerial portfolio. But the President and his aides have refused to be drawn in to argument with critics, choosing rather to focus on the work at hand. “The core objectives of this administration are to improve security, achieve diversified, inclusive economic growth and fight corruption,” Buhari told his cabinet at the swearing in.

Perhaps, these statements have become a staple, therefore the media will rather escalate a seeming slip or at best the repetition of routine policy and fire it up to generate another web of controversy around Buhari and his frequently beleaguered Chief of Staff, Mr. Abba Kyari. The President was reported instructing ministers to direct every request for a meeting with him through Kyari. The President had asked the ministers to always go through Kyari for meeting requests and through the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, for issues relating to the Federal Executive Council.

This was immediately interpreted in some quarters to mean that Buhari, who is privately believed to have left governance to Kyari, was doing so in the open. The main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said that Buhari had reduced ministers to his Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari’s clerical aides with the directive that they (ministers) forthwith should channel all their meeting requests to him through Kyari. The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, said it was an indication that Nigerians would not enjoy good governance during Buhari’s second term. “The directive also suggests that Mr. President as the Minister of Petroleum Resources will also go through the Chief of Staff on policy matters. “He has abdicated his responsibility and ceded it to his Chief of Staff.”

Ologbondiyan had in a statement said such demotion of ministers was unacceptable, counter-productive, adding that it only reduced governance to a domestic affair.

The Ohanaeze Ndigbo and the Afenifere, the Igbo and Yoruba pressure groups also criticised the directives, saying that Buhari had indirectly abdicated his responsibilities, leaving an unelected Kyari to run Nigeria. The critics accused the President of vesting enormous powers in Kyari’s hands, noting that he had become Nigeria’s “de facto President” without contesting an election.

However, the Presidency denied that Buhari gave Kyari and Mustapha any new roles outside what their respective offices performed during the President’s first tenure (2015-2019).

 “It is worth stressing that the role and responsibilities of the Chief of Staff and the method of communication and arranging scheduling between cabinet members and the President are, in Nigeria, based on the US model, where the same system operates, and has done for decades, in precisely the same way.

“That role is to act as the head of the presidential administration at Aso Rock; to be an adviser to the President on any and all matters; to be the line manager for all staff at Aso Rock; and to manage appointments and scheduling for the President.

“In the traditional presidential system, it is a primary function of a Chief of Staff, which may vary according to the needs and desires of each President, to supervise key State House staff, control access to the office and the person of the President, manage communications and information flow and this includes that which binds the relationship with the two other arms of government,” it said in a statement by Buhari’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mr Garba Shehu.

It noted that by stressing the need for the ministers to go through the chief staff, the President was mindful of the fact that most of the ministers were new and did not know what was expected of them on how to relate with the President.

The Presidency explained further, “During the President’s first term those were the responsibilities of the Chief of Staff, and they remain the same responsibilities today. There is no change.

“When President Buhari explained to ministers that they would be expected to communicate with him and arrange scheduling to meet with him primarily via the Chief of Staff, he did so as many of the Buhari II Cabinet ministerial appointments are new appointments and cannot therefore be expected to know how matters of liaising with the President operate.

For the office of the SGF, it also noted, “The Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) on the other hand is responsible for ensuring the effective coordination and monitoring of the implementation of government policies and programmes. All cabinet matters must go through him.

“Under this dispensation, a performance evaluation of ministers and permanent secretaries will be maintained by the SGF. Two weeks after assuming office, they are expected to sign mandate acceptance documents.

“It is time to end the unnecessary controversy, for the key appointees of the President to carry out their jobs.”

A further defense of the official position came from an unexpected quarter. A top-ranking member of the PDP and former presidential aide in the presidency of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, Dr. Doyin Okupe described as accurate President Buhari’s directive to his new ministers. The former presidential aide said going through the chief of staff will prevent unscheduled visit to the Presidential villa. In a post on his social media page, Okupe said he was appalled by some of the criticism against the statement made by president as it was the normal procedure.

He said, “Ministers are constitutional aides of Mr. President in their respective ministries. Whereas the Chief of Staff is a trusted personal aide of the President and the supreme head of the administration in the Presidency. His responsibilities include hour-by-hour and day-to-day administration of the villa and every detail of the programme of the President. This sacred job is done exclusively by the CoS or any one designated to do it on his behalf. “The office of the President is the highest office in the country and it must have strict even though elastic schedules to accommodate emergencies. “It will easily be understood that for the integrity of the schedules of Mr. President, which may include diplomatic, foreign missions, organisations, institutions, bilateral talks, visitations by other heads of states, conferences and other special events, very important domestic affairs, it therefore becomes imperative that only the office of the chief of staff is designated to handle all presidential appointments to avoid confusion and shoddiness at the highest office in the land.”

Okupe said a minister who is unaware of the schedule of the president runs the risk of going to the Villa unannounced and disrupting the already laid down plan. A minister who does not know the scheduled programmes of the President for the day cannot just impose his presence on the office of the president to disrupt the plans and protocols for the day or unnecessarily divert the attention of Mr. President and cause him to delay other previously planned schedules with similarly important dignitaries. Personally, I have witnessed this shameful embarrassments in the past just because we failed to go by laid down procedure. This is often too common with us politicians who consider the President as a colleague or personal friend or associate of long standing, with whom there should not be any bureaucratic barriers even in spite of his new exalted office as the head of state.

However, for the Presidency to run efficiently with a dignified administrative regime, a stratified arrangement of protocol need to be put in place and applied to those who need to see the president officially.”

The controversy about reporting line for ministers was not the only blame game that has attended the announcement of Buhari’s new cabinet.Afenifere and Ohanaeze Ndigbo criticized the allocation of ministries by President Muhammadu Buhari, with all nine ministers from the North-west given senior positions.

There are six geopolitical zones in the country, the North-west, which consists of Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara, got the highest number of ministers with senior portfolios.

The nine ministers from the region include Suleiman Adamu (Jigawa State), who was appointed Minister of Water Resources; Zainab Ahmed (Kaduna State), Minister of Finance; Muhammad Mahmood (Kaduna State), Minister of Environment; and Sabo Nanono (Kano State), Minister of Agriculture and Development. Others are Major General Bashir Salihi Magashi (Kano State), Minister of Defence; Hadi Sirika (Katsina State), Minister of Aviation; Abubakar Malami (Kebbi State), Minister of Justice; Maigarai Dingyadi (Sokoto State), Minister of Police Affairs; and Sadiya Umar Faruk (Zamfara State), Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development.

The National Publicity Secretary of Afenifere, Yinka Odumakin, said the appointment of the ministers was a reflection of alleged sectionalism on the part of the president.

Odumakin said, “That is ‘Next Level’ of sectionalism, in your face, and incorrigibility. There have been complaints about all these things since the first term. Now, it has been done in a super way.”

In the same vein, the National Publicity Secretary of Ohanaeze, Uche Achi-Okpoga, noted, “We were not expecting anything less. We have a President that does not mince words. Why should we be surprised that he gave juicy and senior positions to his kinsmen?”

In his first tenure, Buhari worked with a cabinet of 36 ministers. This time around, he has taken the wise political decision to expand cabinet positions from 36 to 43, adding one person from each of the six geo-political zones.

The chances of interrogating the competence of the new ministers was buried in the cacophony attending partisan interests. While some critics have dragged Buhari in the mud for throwing away decision-makers selected on the basis of their expertise in a given area of responsibility, in favour of members of his party who helped him win election in their respective states, many have lost sight of one of the interesting highlights of the new cabinet. The Next Level cabinet has the benefit of the experience of nine former governors.

The onetime chief executive of their states are Senator Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State, who is the new Minister for Niger Delta Affairs and Dr. Chris Ngige of Anambra State, who has his job as Minister of Labour and Employment back. As Minister of State for Petroleum, Mr. Timipre Sylva will be supervised directly by Buhari who has kept the petroleum portfolio to himself. Sylva previously governed Bayelsa State. Others are Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Ogbonaya Onu of Ebonyi Sate, Otunba Niyi Adebayo of Ekiti State, who serves in the Ministry ofIndustry, Trade and Investment, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, Minister of Works and Housing, was the former governor of Lagos State. His counterpart from Osun State, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola will oversee Ministry of Interior, while the former governor of Rivers State, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi is the Minister of Transportation.

With its often stated core objectives of improving security, achieving a diversified and inclusive economy and creating employment, the persons in charge of these key role are very important. While Fashola was celebrated or condemned, depending on which side of the divide one is, for being made a ‘super minister’ in Buhari I cabinet, that status may have reverted to two women in the Buhari II cabinet.

Zainab Ahmed from Kaduna State who took over from Mrs. Kemi Adeosun and finished as Minister of Finance from being Minister of State in that ministry, now has the additional responsibility with the Budget and National Planning, previously a distinct ministry, added to her. This makes the 59 year-old sibling of Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, arguably the most powerful minister and woman in the country. Ahmed has been applauded by critics for stabilizing the economy along with the Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele. Her reappointment is a measure of approval from Mr. President that he is happy with the direction she is taking the economy. Also heading a three-pronged ministry is another woman, Sadiya Umar Faruk from Zamfara State. She is in charge of the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development. This is one of the new ministries created by this government. Evidently, it will focus on the humanitarian crisis created in many crisis prone areas of the country, particularly the North-east, where the need to engage in charitable projects is assuming alarming proportion. A former Federal Commissioner of National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons, her appointment underscores the determination of the administration to tackle this challenge frontally.

Perhaps, Buhari has redeemed himself from the scourge of feminists who took him to task for saying the place of a woman is in the ‘kitchen and the other room’. Though the number of women in the cabinet has dropped significantly, from 15 to seven women, they might have been compensated with very expansive ministries and very demanding assignments.

The new Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Sabo Nanono, an indigene of Kano State is a fulfillment of Buhari’s promise to appoint an experienced person to head that sector. On his first day at work, he gave a brief background of himself to staff of the ministry. “I studied Business Administration but have been in the agricultural sector since 1973. I am very much interested in agriculture and most people identify me with that. Agriculture has been a sector that has been holding the economy and we need to work in synergy to move to agriculture to the next level,” he said. With the recent presidential directive stopping the CBN from issuing forex for food importation, the ministry is a major pillar that the Buhari administration hopes to anchor its success.

Many have concluded that the posting of Sale Mamman as Minister of Power may not be unconnected with the fact that he is from Taraba State, home of the Mambilla Power Station, one of Africa’s (and Nigeria’s) biggest dam projects.  Conceived in 1982, the power station is expected to transform the Nigerian power sector significantly. But the project has suffered many setbacks. What magic can Mamman bring to the sector?

QUICK FACTS:

* President Buhari was reported instructing ministers to direct every request for a meeting with him through his Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari and through the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, for issues relating to the Federal Executive Council

* This was immediately interpreted in some quarters to mean that Buhari, who is privately believed to have left governance to Kyari, was doing so in the open

* The Presidency denied that Buhari gave Kyari and Mustapha any new roles outside what their respective offices performed during the President’s first tenure (2015-2019)

*The primary function of a Chief of Staff, which may vary according to the needs and desires of each President, is to supervise key State House staff, control access to the office and the person of the President, manage communication and information flow and this includes that which binds the relationship with the two other arms of government

*The Secretary to the Government of the Federation is responsible for ensuring the effective coordination and monitoring of the implementation of government policies and programmes. All cabinet matters must go through him

*In his first tenure, Buhari worked with a cabinet of 36 ministers. This time around, he has taken the wise political decision to expand cabinet positions from 36 to 43, adding one person from each of the six geo-political zones

* Some critics have dragged Buhari in the mud for throwing awaydecision-makers selected on the basis of their expertise in a given area of responsibility, in favour of members of his party who helped him win election in their respective states

* The Next Level cabinet has the benefit of the experience of nine former governors

* Buhari has stated that the core objectives of his administration is improving security, achieving a diversified and inclusive economy and creating employment

*The status of ‘super minister’ in Buhari II cabinet, has reverted to two women

* Zainab Ahmed from Kaduna State, is arguably the most powerful minister and woman in the country. She is the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning

*Also heading a three-pronged ministry is another woman, Sadiya Umar Faruk from Zamfara State. She is in charge of the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development