What often worries me is why would major policies affecting Nigeria be always pronounced when the president is out of the country? The president addressed the nation on Independence Day, almost saying nothing, but chose to announce issues affecting us while out of the country. Why the loquacity abroad? Why the taciturnity and gynophobia at home?
In cabinet politics, there are appointments considered insignificant. Posting to such positions is akin to sending appointees to political Siberia. At the state level, I know you are not a governor’s man when you are posted to Ministry of Commerce or are made Chairman of the Library Board or Public Suggestion Box office.
In party politics, too, there are some appointments considered less-important for their impotence, useless for their uselessness, effete for their effeteness. Positions like Assistant Auditor, Assistant PRO, etc. are considered less important, “less lucrative”, while the ex-officio appointments are worse than all.
While, in most cases, being an ex-officio was by virtue of one’s previous role in the party hierarchy, in some cases it is done to give politicians a sense of belonging.
What President Buhari is introducing today is something similar to ex-officio appointments in party politics. You can’t have a minister without a duty and that duty is what is called a portfolio. A minister is a minister because he ministers.
By the president’s pronouncement in far away India, Nigeria’s should expect a cabinet with three categories of ministers: kitchen ministers (those very close to Mr. President), portfolio ministers (those assigned ministries) and ex-officio ministers (those without any duty).
What often worries me is why would major policies affecting Nigeria be always pronounced when the president is out of the country? The president addressed the nation on Independence Day, almost saying nothing, but chose to announce issues affecting us while out of the country. Why the loquacity abroad? Why the taciturnity and gynophobia at home?
Why would Nigerians be made to snoop thousands of miles away to find issues affecting them told to a global audience? Why would our policies be made in foreign lands and imported to Nigeria?
I was bitter hearing the president announce the date he would appoint ministers while abroad. It irked me when he disclosed the first portfolio he assigned himself while on a overseas trip. I was livid when the president revealed, yet again outside Nigeria, that some ministers may not be assigned duties. Why don’t we deserve respect from our leaders?
Nigerians merely eavesdropped when President Buhari told the Washington Post audience while in Washington on June 20 that he would appoint ministers in September. On September 29, while attending a UN meeting in New York, Nigerians only overheard Buhari telling a foreign audience that he would be the minister of petroleum resources. While in India, Nigerians strained their ears – some 7,500kms away – to hear the president saying some ministers won’t be “substantive” – whatever that means! What is the problem with Africans?
Now let us stand down two made-in-America pronouncements and take a made-in-India policy, which seems substandard. Since Buhari cautioned against the importation of substandard products from India, shouldn’t we caution him against importing substandard decisions to Nigeria?
Dear sir, if Niger Republic could afford 32 ministers, Mali could afford 37, I wonder why Nigeria can’t afford 36. The cost of appointing ministers is not what Nigeria can’t bear. The budget of a single foreign trip by the president to Europe costs Nigeria more than what a minister will cost Nigeria, in terms of statutory earnings, in four years.
I still want to believe President Buhari made, as usual, a Freudian slip when he said some ministers would not have a role to play.
“There used to be forty two ministers,” the president said in India, “but I think we can barely keep half of that now because we cannot afford it.”
He continued: “Others may not be substantive ministers but they will sit in the cabinet because that is what the constitution said and we can’t operate outside the constitution.
“We are reducing the number of ministries we can’t afford to pay,” the president said.
Dear Mr. President, paying ministers is not beyond our country’s reach.
Dear sir, if Niger Republic could afford 32 ministers, Mali could afford 37, I wonder why Nigeria can’t afford 36. The cost of appointing ministers is not what Nigeria can’t bear. The budget of a single foreign trip by the president to Europe costs Nigeria more than what a minister will cost Nigeria, in terms of statutory earnings, in four years.
If you consider the five-Star hotel bills of tens of people on the entourage, their feeding, estacode, the running of the presidential jet, the advance party, the foreign service office spending, logistics, etc, you will see sense in what I’m saying.
There are 1001 ways of cutting costs, but certainly refusal to allocate duties to ministers is not one of them. Such decisions rather reduce efficiency that will cost Nigeria a lot. Buhari’s importation of a substandard “policy” will simply conduce inefficiency.
Applying this Indian made contraband policy into the polity is, in polite tone, faulty.
PREMIUM TIMES
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