With New Ministers, Buhari Confronts Nigeria’s Challenges, Offers Fresh Hope (II)

With New Ministers, Buhari Confronts Nigeria’s Challenges, Offers Fresh Hope (II)

As ministers took their oath of office on Wednesday and were allocated their portfolios, THISDAY correspondents, in continuation of the Special Report, which began yesterday, dwell on the challenges and opportunities each of them would encounter in their new assignment and what their stewardship portends for the nation

Police Affairs: Promoting Efficiency in Crime Fighting

The new minister has his job neatly cut out for him as he takes office against the mounting insecurity in the country exacerbated by kidnapping for ransom, banditry and insurgency. That the police are overwhelmed in tackling these challenges is obvious. Many analysts say the inability of the force to rise to the occasion is worsened by the endemic challenges of corruption, inadequate funding and equipment.

Hitherto subsumed under the Ministry of Interior, the case had been made that given the growth of violent crimes and the inadequacy of the police, it had become necessary for deep reforms in the security agency and that the best vehicle for that was a standalone ministry.

As a former member of the House of Representatives, the new Minister of Police Affairs and Sokoto State-born Alhaji Mohammed Maigari Dingyadi, like most Nigerians, is not a stranger to the challenges facing the security agency.

Nigerians are daily confronted with cases of extra-judicial killings. So called “accidental discharge” regularly perpetrated by the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) has not been tackled. Sadly, 80 per cent of reactions on twitter to the recent killings of policemen by soldiers in Taraba State were that of jubilation instead of mourning.

The new police minister needs to change the poor image of the police and the mindset and attitude of Nigerians towards the security agency as a law enforcement agency that could be trusted and not a terror on the citizenry.

Having been tested as a human and material resources manager, Dingyadi is rightly placed to steer the affairs of the ministry. He was one-time Secretary to the Sokoto State Government and former Chairman, National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE).
Dingyadi is expected to use his connections as a former lawmaker to lobby the House of Representatives to pass the Police Reform Bill already passed by the Senate of the 8th National Assembly.

The bill seeks to create a police system in Nigeria that would carry out its statutory mandate with fairness, justice and equity in the maintenance of law and order for the socio-economic progress of the country.

The minister is looked upon to also push for the full implementation of the Police Trust Fund Act recently assented to by President Muhammadu Buhari as it is expected to address funding, training and recruitment challenges, as well as enhance the skill of personnel.

Dingyadi was born in 1953 in Dingyadi, Sokoto State. He had his Secondary Education at Government College, Sokoto. After his secondary education, he went to the School of Basic Studies for a two-year course. He later gained admission to the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and graduated in 1978. He represented Bodinga Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives.

Mines and Steel Development: Enthroning Strong Regulatory Regime

The desire of President Muhammadu Buhari to diversify the economy through the non-oil sector, may not produce tangible results if deliberate efforts are not made to address the sector’s poor regulatory framework – denying the sector foreign investors.
The sector, which to a larger extent, many thought will play a major role in contributing to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), has left many industry players unimpressed despite government’s efforts at reviving the sector.

Although mining of mineral resources is on the exclusive list in the constitution, many state governments have created mining laws that tend to conflict with those of the federal government.
Observers of the sector said the regulatory environment was so weak that it might have adversely ensured non-effective compliance with the existing laws guiding operators in the country’s mining industry.

The new minister, Mr. Olamilekan Adegbite, is therefore expected to deal quickly with this issue among others.
Also waiting for his attention is the conflict between the federal and state governments in the management of mineral resources in the country, which has resulted in double taxation, which is negatively impacting the growth of operators in the sector.
If government really wants to diversify the economy and reap any dividend of the investment, the sector must be driven by professionals, like what is happening in established mining destinations such as Australia and South Africa, where there is adequate bankable data as most operators in Nigeria lack the technical know-how to make the sector work.

Another major challenge hindering growth of the mining sector, according to stakeholders, is poor regulatory framework. The loopholes in the mining sector make it difficult for major mining companies to trust Nigeria. The gains would not produce tangible results except the indigenous capacity was propped up. Again, illegal mining is also a challenge as it has led to insecurity and loss of lives and property as we have witnessed in Zamfara State.
The nation’s mining industry is still dominated by artisanal miners and junior companies whose capacity need to be bolstered in order to reap the benefits of the diversification into the mining sector as huge resources are regularly lost to the activities of the illegal miners.

Adegbite, should in turn, continue from where his predecessor stopped, ensuring that all the issues affecting the smooth operation of the industry, particularly the conflict between the state and federal governments on the management of the mineral resources, are resolved.
There should be continuity in the roadmap established by the former minister in the development of the sector. If the roadmap is effectively followed, the country may experience accelerate development and growth in the mining sector.

Health: Ensuring Affordable Healthcare Services, Ending Foreign Medical Tourism, Brain Drain

The lingering questions among healthcare stakeholders and development partners on who becomes the substantial minister of health has finally come to an end with the naming of the immediate past Minister of State for Health, Dr. Osagie Emmanuel Ehanire, a renowned orthopedic surgeon, as the key driver of policy formulation and execution in the years ahead.
But as cheering and heartwarming this may be to those conversant with the health system in Nigeria, one thing is certain, he will be leading a sector with challenges that have not been surmounted by the torchbearers before him. Some of these challenges, by direct implication, have caused the high mortality rate Nigerians are facing due to the nation’s poor healthcare system.
He will be moving against the tide and racing against time to achieve most of the targets set globally for the health sector of all member-countries of the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Challenges Before Ehanire

If there is one major task before the new minister of health, it is to ensure Nigeria achieves the 2030 target for Universal Health Coverage (UHC). No doubt the country is presently lagging behind in this regard, with at least 74 per cent of Nigerians still directly paying for their healthcare.

Another area previous ministers have been unable to address is the incessant strike embarked upon by the various bodies in the health sector. This has in no small way crippled the country’s healthcare system on many occasions; leading to deaths of helpless, and most importantly, poor patients who are unable to pay for healthcare in private health facilities. What is Ehanire bringing to the table to address this?

As part of plans to improve access to healthcare, especially in rural and hard-to-reach areas, the immediate past Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, championed the establishment of the Basic Healthcare Provisions Fund (BHCPF), which arguably is the federal government’s best healthcare programme since the return to the extant democratic dispensation. The programme, which has commenced in four states, is meant to cover the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory in due course. How the minister handles this, going forward, is one task that will define his tenure.

Another crucial task Ehanire would have to deal with is evolving a policy matrix that could reverse medical tourism and brain drain in the country. It is no longer news that the country loses at least $1 billion every year to medical tourism due to its poor healthcare system, while more than half of the medical professionals trained in the country now practise abroad. President Muhammadu Buhari, on many occasions, has lamented about this trend; and there is no doubt that his administration could do with an administrator-cum expert who could guarantee the people prompt and safe healthcare system that would not need to sell the moon to afford.

Ehanire has the task to, within the next four years, fix the healthcare system, attract state-of-the-art facilities into the country and ensure topmost professionalism among healthcare providers. He will also be faced with the challenge of ensuring doctors, nurses and other healthcare providers trained in Nigeria practise in the country while those who have relocated come back home to serve their fatherland.

Giving his pedigree, Ehanire, from Edo State, who graduated as a medical doctor from the College of Medicine, Ludwig Maximillians University, Munich, and holds Post Graduate Diplomas from the Teaching Hospital of the University of Düsseldorf and Essen, Germany in the areas of Anaesthesiology, General Surgery, and Orthopaedic Trauma Surgery, is well placed to infuse life into the nation’s decaying healthcare system.

He has served on various medical boards both within and outside Nigeria. He was Senior Registrar, Clinical Instructor, University of Benin Teaching Hospital, Member of the old Bendel and Edo States Hospital Management Board.
He was a Consultant Surgeon, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria, Clinical Course instructor, Fracture Internal Fixation course, BG Accident Hospital, Duisburg, Germany. He co-authored the orthopedic book “The severely injured limb” edited By John Ackroyd.

Sports: Putting Nigeria Back on Winning Track

Just like another former journalist, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, who was sports minister between 2011 and 2014, Mr. Sunday Dare is coming into the sector when urgent steps are needed to reinvigorate the sports.
Poor funding, dilapidated infrastructure, a weak work-force occasioned by government’s near total neglect of the sector as well as corruption are some of the challenges that the new minister is going to be grappling with.

Though he has no formal training in sports, good management skill will surely be enough to see him through some of the issues Dalung failed to resolve in his four years stint as Nigeria’s Games Master General.

Right now, Team Nigeria’s over 500 athletes are in Rabat, Morocco participating in the ongoing 12th All Africa Games. As at the time the contingent left Nigeria, there were reports of non-release of the budgeted funds for Nigeria’s participation at the games. It has become routine for Nigerian sports men and women to go through this obnoxious practice of inadequate preparations for continental and global sports fiesta, resulting in the nation’s poor showings at such occasions.

The new minister will be shocked to also learn that the Nigerian senior women’s basketball team that went to Dakar, Senegal to retain the continental Afro Basket Championship last Sunday did so with no support from the sports ministry. The NBBF took loans to send the players to represent the most populous black nation at an African event.

Similarly, the men’s team, D’Tigers travelled out of Lagos to China for the FIBA World Cup on Tuesday with no kobo from the supervising Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports. Yet, these gallant Nigerians are going to compete with others with better funding and be expected to win.

The 2020 Olympic Games, billed for Tokyo, Japan, is barely a year away; yet, no meaningful preparations have been done to warrant expecting gold medals from our athletes. Winning an Olympic gold is never achieved through ad hoc preparations but a four-year plan.

No one is in doubt of the capacity of the new minister to deliver on his mandate, having managed multifarious portfolios in broadcasting, print, online and perception management.
Having also designed and implemented the acquisition of modern Information Technology and Telecoms gadgets for production and distribution activities such as news-gathering, content storage, programme distribution etc. to expand content capacity and reach; as well as increase existing target audience, he should be able to also manage the sports sector to success.

In his early days as a journalist, Dare multitasked as a correspondent with several foreign publications, including THE NATION magazine in New York; as well as working with the Europea-based Fourth Estate magazine as a production editor during the military interregnum in Nigeria.

Other journalistic roles Dare took on during the military era in Nigeria include being a pioneer member of the Nigerian weekly magazines, The News and Tempo; serving as an Editor, Tempo magazine and pioneer Online Editor.
Therefore, his managerial acumen would be put to task in his new role of putting Nigeria back on the winning track.

Communications: Strengthening Infrastructure, Broadband Penetration

Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) stakeholders have tasked the newly appointed Minister of Communications, Dr. Isa Ali Pantami, to address key challenges affecting the telecoms sector.
They identified some of the challenges to include lack of national backbone infrastructure, low broadband penetration and poor service quality.

Stakeholders are worried that Nigeria is yet to develop a national backbone infrastructure that would transmit broadband capacity from the shores of the country to the hinterlands.
According to them Nigeria has several submarine cables landing points at the shores of the country from Glo 1, MainOne, MTN WACS, and SAT 3, yet access to ubiquitous broadband is a huge challenge because there is no national backbone infrastructure that will transmit the broadband capacity to the hinterlands where demand for broadband is high.

Also, they challenged Pantami to consider developing national backbone infrastructure, which they believed would drive down the cost of broadband bandwidth and create more access to the internet.
Furthermore, the stakeholders also urged Pantami to create more telecoms infrastructure in order to deepen broadband penetration from its current 32 per cent penetration to over 50 per cent.

In addition, they want the minister to address the issue of poor service quality by calling on telecoms operators to invest in telecoms infrastructure to expand their networks.
President, Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), Mr. Olusola Teniola, said: “Industry players had long been clamouring for a minister with core competence in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and now we have gotten one in person of Dr. Isa Ibrahim Pantami and we are happy about it because he understands the industry very well.”

Teniola, however, called on Pantami to address key issues affecting the telecoms sector, to enable Nigerians to benefit from the positive impact of telecommunications.
He listed the challenges to include national broadband penetration, overlapping roles of parastatals under the supervision of the ministry and the issue of funding of ICT infrastructure rollout across the country.

According to Teniola, the new minister must, as a matter of urgency, put in place the National Broadband Plan for 2019-2024; Create a coherent digital strategy from 2020-2030; Review the NCCA 2003 that empowers the Nigerian Communications Commission, as well as the NITDA Act in order to resolve overlap and digital related gaps evident in the telecoms space; and create an ICT Infrastructure Bank/fund that will drive ICT development, among others.

Also, the immediate past President of the Nigeria Computer Society (NCS), Prof. Adesola Aderounmu, wants the minister to immediately look into the key challenges of the communications sector and address them accordingly.

Ministry of FCT: Reconditioning Nation’s Capital to Original Master Plan

Musa Bello

The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) administration is constrained by many challenges, which are undermining its ability to deliver on its critical mandate for which it was established over 40 years ago. Fortunately, these challenges cannot be said to be new to Alhaji Mohammed Musa Bello, who is returning to his old duty post as FCT Minister.

One of the key challenges is insufficient funding, which hampers and frustrates the efforts to provide key infrastructure for those living in the nation’s capital and its suburbs.
In 2018, N32.2 billion was appropriated as the national budget for the FCT. But out of this amount, only N9.6 billion was released.

This unfortunate situation has a telling effect on the effective administration of the territory as only 15 out of the 33 priority listed projects could be executed.
Between 2015 and 2018, out of the total N634 billion budget proposals to fund about 313 projects, only N354 billion was appropriated, while N162 billion was actually released for the same number of projects.

It is as result of this drawback that the progress in infrastructure provision in the FCT merely stands at about 25 per cent after 40-year period of consistent investment and a plan to make the territory a fully developed city in less than 30 years with a target population of 3.6 million.

Apart from that, the Abuja master plan has been abused resulting in environmental development disarray, slums and housing inadequacy. This is coupled with the seemingly criminal activities of land speculators – parading themselves as developers, who have continued to hold owners of houses in mass housing estates hostage.

Abuja will grow into a model city if the Abuja urban actors would coordinate and properly execute the master plan and the development laws, integrated into a coordinated programme that would take advantage of urban development principles that would create the much-needed environment for the inhabitants.

During the first tenure of Bello as FCT Minister, the administration focused on completing projects that were initiated by the past administration such as the Abuja Mass Railway System that will interlink many of the city’s satellite towns.
As he returned to the post, Bello is expected to build on the many initiatives he executed then, particularly in the provision of infrastructure.

Bello, a graduate of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, where he obtained a B.Sc. in Management with a major in Banking and Finance in 1980 as well as an MBA in the same field, has a major task at hand now to provide adequate infrastructure befitting the status of the FCT as the capital of one of the leading nations in Africa. And for him to achieve this, he has to ensure strict compliance with the Abuja Master plan, which has been distorted over the years.

Ministry of Information and Culture: Charting New Course in Information Mgt, Culture Promotion

Lai Mohammed

Though the Information and Culture Ministry is an integral ministry, whose major task it is to communicate the federal government policy achievements to the public and the outer world, the ministry was severely underfunded in the last dispensation.
Another challenge it faced was that it has suffered a perception problem of being a propaganda arm of government that is only used to hound its perceived opponents.

However, it is expected that the Ministry of Information under the watch of Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who is returning to his old post, will continue to mobilise the citizenry, particularly in the area of national reorientation campaign, to achieve a paradigm shift in the ways Nigerians are doing things.

The minister is also expected to be in the vanguard of raising his voice to the danger the spread of fake news can constitute to national unity and in the fight against insurgency in the North-east.
The ministry has a vital role to play in de-escalating the farmers/herders’ bloodletting in the restive North-central, which has become a major threat to national security.
The minister is also expected to highlight the strides of the administration in the area of infrastructural provision across the nation.
As a lawyer and astute public relations practitioner, Mohammed would need to chart a new course to give the ministry the dynamism it needed in the management of information about government’s activities and in promoting the Nigerian culture.

Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment: Sustaining Investors’ Confidence in the Economy

As former governor and industrialist, Adeniyi Adebayo knows that the Industry, Trade and Investment Ministry, which is now heading, is critical to the realisation of the country’s economic potentials, especially in the areas of industrialisation and boosting the investment prospects of the country as well as enhancing both domestic, regional and global trade.
One of the major concerns awaiting the new minister is the allegation that the country currently lacked a definite trade policy, among other things. Experts had argued that the absence of a trade policy had over the years resulted in the continued dumping and smuggling of goods into the country among other unwholesome trade practices.

In the era whereby made-in-Nigeria goods are constantly encountering problems accessing international markets, there are high expectations on the part of the minister to make exports more standardised and competitive among other things, as well as stem the rate of rejection.

Adebayo must also ensure that the various trade agreements the country has had with various countries are domesticated, ensuring that Nigeria maximises its opportunities from the AfCTA, which it recently endorsed.
According to the Executive Director, Nigeria Private Sector Alliance (NiPSA), Mr. Nwiabu Legborsi Nuka, what is currently referred to as the nation’s trade policy is no longer relevant in the face of present reality.

He said: “Basically, I think the agenda before the incoming Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment should be how to have a national trade policy in place. A document of over 10 years is no longer a living document because it does not speak to the reality of now.
“Also, industrial policy and now that we have sign to the AfCTA agreement, let’s see how Nigerian businesses can be made more competitive as well as get market access to the African. But above all is to develop private sector capacity to compete in the African market- that is the key thing.”

 

Ministry of Environment: Promoting Good Living Via Quality Ecosystem

 

Despite having so many special initiatives to make the environment friendlier to live in, the Ministry of Environment has turned out to be one of few federal ministries whose impact Nigerians hardly feel. With such programmes as the Ogoni Cleanup, to remediate hhydrocarbon-impacted sites in Ogoniland, Rivers State; the Green Bonds, which is fixed income securities issued to finance projects; the Great Green Wall Programme, conceived to address land degradation and desertification as well as boost food security and support communities to adapt to climate change in the Sahel-Sahara region of Africa, the ministry’s activities ought to have been more impactful that it is presently.

Fortunately, the newly-appointed Minister of Environment, Dr. Mohammed Mahmoud Abubakar, is not unaware of the need to change the narrative. Shortly on his assumption of office on Wednesday, he has already expressed his readiness to assiduously work with all key stakeholders to design problem-solving programmes and development-targeted policies to tackle ecological problems and other environmental issues and concerns across the country so as to improve the living standards of Nigerians.

Mahmoud will have to work well with the new Minister of State, Sharon Ikeazor, to make the ministry more relevant to Nigerians.
One critical area where the ministry will make such an impact is to come up with a firm policy document to deal with issues of global warming that have negatively affected the environment.
Nigeria, which it became a party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992 and ratified the Convention in 1994 as well as ratifying the Paris Agreement (PA) in March 2017, has not demonstrated much seriousness in tackling the issue.

There are also ecological problems such as erosion and desertification bedeviling the southern and northern parts of the country that urgently require the ministry’s attention.
The ministry also needs to come up with an effective action plan to tackle flooding that has led to the death of many and loss of assets valued at millions of naira.
Therefore, for Mahmoud and Ikeazor to take the ministry to an enviable ‘Next Level’ as championed by the Buhari administration, they have to gird their loins to make the environment friendlier to live in.

Ministry of Water Resources: Dealing with Potable Water, Waterways Challenges

The fact that President Muhammadu Buhari appointed Mr. Suleiman Adamu, an engineer, to serve for a second term is an indication that he may have done well during the first tenure and is trusted to transform the water sector.

Under Adamu’s first tenure, the ministry, which said it inherited 116 major ongoing and abandoned projects like irrigation and drainage, 35 dams and 37 reservoirs and water supply on assumption of office, could only complete and 11.

Adamu, as an engineer who has also served as project manager on several projects, notably under the PTF urban/semi urban, regional and rural water supply programmes and national waterways development projects, has the skills and wealth of expertise needed to do more for the water sector.

Ministry of Women Affairs: Giving the Female a Better Deal

Dame Pauline Kedem Tallen, a former Minister of State for Science and Technology in the Obasanjo administration,
will supervise a ministry with the lowest of funds and which has suffered due to low budgetary allocation that has crippled its activities. However, with the little given to it, not much progress has been recorded; it is almost non-existent.

Under the ministry’s watch, rape cases have been on the rise without much concerted efforts from it to tackle the menace.
More often than not, the ministry has relinquished its responsibilities to NGOs, as it lacks the political will to fully addressing the challenges of women, which several challenges, including health, education, business, politics among others.
Tallen, an astute politician and experience administrator is expected to change the narrative in the next four years.

Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development: Realising Food Security Mandate

Under the supervision of the new Minister, Mr. Sabo Nanono, the ministry is central to the pursuit and realisation of the economic diversification objectives of the Buhari administration, especially in the area of agriculture.
One of the major challenges for Nanono, who hails from Kano, is the inability of government to successfully implement the various policy initiatives rolled out towards repositioning the sector.

During the past administration, although there was a revolution in local rice production, as a result of the intervention of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) through the Anchor Borrower Programme (ABP), some of the promises to mechanise agriculture through the provision of tractors were not largely fulfilled, a situation which had limited progress in food self-sufficiency and export.
There is also the need for the new minister to ensure that all policies are geared towards enhancing the capacity of farmers to produce both for consumption and export as well as ensure that the environment is more secure for farming to thrive.

According to Policy Analyst and Special Adviser to the two past Ministers of Agriculture, Dr. Olukayode Oyeleye, the incoming minister must ensure that the agricultural policies, which were jettisoned after 2014, should all be revisited going forward. “The Growth Support Enhancement Scheme, which had been tried in this country and was working and had been adopted by other countries in Africa.

“I mean, if they have come to copy it from these other countries and they see it working, then why should Nigeria drop it?
“That is a means through which farmers have been directly reached in this country. In other words, the business of fertiliser, government has no hand in it: let it be facilitated by government and let the private players be at the forefront as was designed in the Growth Enhancement Support Scheme,” he stated.

Also, the Chairperson of the Association for Small Scale Agro Producers in Nigeria (ASSAPIN), Bauchi State chapter, Hajiya Amina Bala Jubril, told THISDAY that the incoming minister should press the government to increase budgetary allocation to agriculture.
She said: “My opinion is that I want to see that the government invests more in agriculture because all these interventions that we are seeing, if the government does not invest adequately, at least, meeting that 10 per cent Moputu Declaration, then we are not heading anywhere.”
With his wealth of experience, Shanono is expected to make a proper mix of financing and agriculture to make a huge difference in the sector.

Ministry of Justice: Balancing Obedience to Court Order and National Security

Abubakar Malami
Abubakar Malami

Abubakar Malami (SAN) just returned by President Muhammadu Buhari as the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, though may be well familiar with his new portfolio, has a herculean task in the justice administration.

His coming back was no surprise to many in the political and justice sector, particularly staff of the ministry, who believed Malami, who was first appointed by Buhari in 2015, did well both for the justice sector and the nation in his first term.

Some of the achievements accrued to Malami in his first tenure include giving bite to the fight against corruption and repositioning the judiciary for effective justice delivery. But critics believe his policies were targeted at perceived political enemies of the federal government.

Rightly or wrongly the Buhari administration in the last four years, through the support of the Justice Ministry, recovered assets and billions of naira allegedly looted by public servants and prosecuting alleged culprits in several courts across the country.

It should be noted that the fight against corruption in the country did not spare the judiciary as witnessed by the invasion of homes of judges in 2017 as well as the arraignment and conviction of a former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen.
Internationally, Nigeria is receiving greater cooperation in the area of repatriation of looted funds stashed abroad.

One of the major challenges before Malami is the recent $9 billion judgement debt slammed against the country by a British Court.
If the government fails to get a stay of execution, the judgement would see to the seizure of Nigeria’s assets in the United Kingdom, in a time when the administration is in dire need of funds for development.

Another serious issue that Malami must urgently tackle is the frequent disobedience of orders of court by the executive arm, which has indeed made Nigerians wonder if the country is under democratic rule. It is a known fact that the executive under Malami as AGF has treated court judgement with levity and he is being perceived to be an enabler, especially with his comments during Senate screening that he is more concerned with national security than defending individuals’ rights.

Closely related to the issue above is the need for the executive to observe the rule of law and separation of powers, as well as the need to ensure independence of the judiciary at the state level.

There is also the need for adequate funding of some agencies such as the National Human Rights Commission, National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Person (NAPTIP) Legal Aid Council amongst others. There is also the need to synergise and coordinate agencies in the fight against corruption under the ministry.

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