The dust over the resignation of the erstwhile Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun, had not died down before another story broke that the Minister of Communications, Mr Adebayo Shittu, did not undergo the mandatory one-year National Youth Service Corps scheme. However, unlike the case of Adeosun, which was treated with silence until her resignation about a week ago, Shittu immediately responded, acknowledging that he did not participate in the programme. But his excuse was curious. He said he was elected a member of the Oyo State House of Assembly in 1979 immediately he finished from the Law School, and by serving as a legislator, which he saw as “a higher service,” he had already served his fatherland as required by the constitution. His words: “There is a whole world of difference (between my case and Mrs Kemi Adeosun’s case). Unfortunately, Kemi had a fake certificate. I didn’t present any. I didn’t have one. I simply followed the constitutional requirement that if you are qualified to contest an election, it is compulsory for you to serve the nation in the capacity that you won an election”.
But the law is clear on the three categories of people to be exempted from the NYSC service: (1) Those who graduated after their 30th birthday; (2) Those who have served in the military or the police or intelligence agencies for at least nine months; (3). Those conferred with national honours before graduation.
In her response on the issue, the spokesperson for the National Youth Service Corps, Adenike Adeyemi, faulted Shittu’s claim that holding an elective office suffices for the compulsory national service. Stressing that the NYSC gives no preferences to people because of social or political status, Adeyemi said: “If you are a graduate locally trained or foreign trained, as long as you graduate before the age of 30, you are expected to serve. Whether foreign or locally trained, the law is the same.”
The provision of the NYSC is clear and it states that every Nigerian graduate must serve the nation for one year before any form of employment in the public sector in the federation. The implication is that Shittu has been breaching the law of Nigeria since 1979 (39 years) when he became a legislator. It is also surprising that he was cleared as a minister of the federation with no NYSC certificate.
Before this revelation and even before the Adeosun scandal, it had been alleged that Chief Okoi Obono-Obla, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Prosecutions, used a forged secondary school certificate to gain admission to study law at the University of Jos in 1985. While the original result he obtained from school showed that he was absent for the Literature-in-English exam, the result he used to gain admission said he had a C6 in Literature-in-English. Literature-in-English is compulsory for students seeking admission into law in Nigerian universities. Testifying before the House of Representatives ad hoc panel investigating Obono-Obla’s alleged forgery in June 2018, WAEC registrar, represented by the deputy registrar, Femi Ola, told the committee that available evidence showed that the results in the certificate presented by Obono-Obla were altered and therefore invalid. Curiously, three months after that official confirmation, nothing has been done by the government. Obono-Obla has not been suspended or sacked; neither has the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari confirmed that the report over his certificate is false. It is worrisome that this is an administration that prides itself on its zero tolerance for corruption and fraud.
One wonders why President Buhari finds it difficult to act decisively on issues that bring a bad image to his administration. What would he lose by promptly suspending or sacking Obono-Obla who was never known to have helped to sway any state election in Buhari’s favour in 2015? There is no evidence that the presence of Obono-Obla as an aide to Buhari will add any major significance to Buhari’s electoral fate in 2019. On the contrary, retaining Obla has helped to dent the image of Buhari and portray him as a leader who does not keep his word on integrity.
The sad part of this is that these ministers and aides were the same people that took the President six months of meticulous search to pick after his inauguration in May 2015. From one minister to the other and one aide to another, the nation is constantly treated to one ridiculous statement or the other or one scandal or the other. From the tenure of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo as President in 1999 to the tenure of Dr Goodluck Jonathan in 2015, there are usually ministers and heads of some agencies that shine brightly and bring some goodwill to the president who appointed them.
For example, during Obasanjo’s tenure, Prof Dora Akunyili shone as the Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, reforming Nigeria’s drug industry; Mallam Nasir el-Rufai shone as the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, bringing Abuja back to its original plan; Prof Charles Soludo shone as the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, supervising the consolidation of the banks; Mallam Nuhu Ribadu shone as the Chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commision, fighting the big guns that perpetrated financial crimes; while Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala shone as the Minister of Finance, negotiating the debt forgiveness from the Paris Club for Nigeria.
Although Yar’Adua’s tenure was short-lived, one can still remember the strides of Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi as the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, who ensured that the banking sector did not collapse, as well as Mrs Ifueko Omoigui-Okauru as the Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, who revolutionised tax-collection, especially with the introduction of Taxpayer Identification Number.
Similarly, during the tenure of Jonathan, Dr Akinwumi Adesina as Minister of Agriculture shone like a million stars and turned that sector around; Prof Attahiru Jega as Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission made people have faith in the electoral process because of the transparency he brought into it; Prof Barth Nnaji as the Minister of Power made an impact in our electricity sector before his exit and replacement by Prof Chinedu Nebo, who sustained Nnaji’s efforts; Mr Mike Onolememen as the Minister of Works displayed some flashes; Mrs Stella Oduah as Minister of Aviation achieved the CAT 1 status for Nigeria, a testimony to the upgrade in that sector that saved Nigeria from the rampant air crashes that faced the nation before that period, in spite of the bulletproof car scandal that trailed her later.
Conversely, under the administration of Buhari, not much is heard from his ministers, except for the occasional flashes from Mr Babatunde Raji Fashola, Minister of Power, Works and Housing, and Chief Audu Ogbeh, Minister of Agriculture. Even other ministers like Dr Chris Ngige and Mr Chibuike Amaechi, who had shown the capacity to make a difference when they were governors of Anambra and Rivers states respectively, seem either assigned the wrong portfolios or not given the free hand to operate.
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