I HEARTILY thank Mr President for making the immensely capable representative of my state, Rivers, his Minister of Transport.
I was also very pleased when I heard that the Aviation and Transport ministries have been merged…and that Senator Hadi Sirika, a highly skilled ex-pilot who comes across as a serious modern professional, will be the Minister of State.
I’m certain that Amaechi will do an excellent job and make Rivers People proud…and that Sirika will help him ensure that Port Harcourt International Airport – which has been a total disgrace for a long time and was recently voted the worst airport in the world by CNN, the American TV station – will finally become passenger-friendly.
I heartily congratulate Mr President for formally recognising the considerable talents of Babatunde Fashola, the famously industrious and effective former Governor of Lagos State, by bestowing a ministerial appointment on him. But isn’t it somewhat risky and overly optimistic to expect a lone individual to competently manage three important and time-consuming portfolios – Power and Works and Housing – in a country as large, complex and messed up as Nigeria?Babatunde Fashola
After decades of regular electricity outages, chronic corruption, infrastructural decay and interminable debates about the best ways forward on the generation, transmission, distribution and pricing fronts, the power sector is, on its own, more than enough wahala for any one person to worry about.
Works and Housing, meanwhile, are less challenging and less chaotic than Power; but they are still huge economic sectors that are riddled with endless nightmare scenarios that need to be resolved as soon as possible.
Fashola will no doubt recruit some clever experts and get support from his Deputy and civil servants. But the buck will stop on his desk; and he will be blamed for anything that goes wrong and for any area in which there is insufficient progress.
If anyone can simultaneously handle several tough challenges without collapsing or turning in a lamentably mediocre performance, Fashola can. But his plate is extremely full and his cup is likely to overflow; and I don’t envy him one bit.
Kemi Adeosun
There is widespread consternation about the appointment of Kemi Adeosun, the new Minister of Finance. Several concerned citizens have contacted me to say that they don’t think that she should have been given such a powerful position. And, having watched her Senate screening on TV, I share these reservations.
Bluntly put, Adeosun – who was Commissioner of Finance in Ogun State – seemed like an inoffensive and fairly bright young lady; but she didn’t strike me as someone who could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with accomplished foreign counterparts like the British Chancellor of the Exchequer or the American Treasury Secretary.
Nor could I imagine Adeosun confidently discussing fiscal policy with Christine Lagarde, the impressive Chief Executive of the International Monetary Fund.
Adeosun doesn’t even come close to matching the stature of her predecessor, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who made mistakes as ex-President Goodluck Jonathan’s Minister of Finance, but was still a globally respected Woman Of Substance who had held down senior posts at the World Bank before she came home to serve.
I am not, in a nutshell, convinced that Adeosun possesses the gravitas, experience or knowledge to be put in charge of the Giant Of Africa’s financial well-being! And, for now at least, I wish Mr President had chosen someone else for this hot seat.
Harsh criticisms
Having said all this, appearances can be – and often are – deceptive; and Adeosun may actually be more special than she sounded at her Senate screening last month.
Furthermore, harsh criticisms from folks who claim to know her and have told me that she has been promoted above her abilities may turn out to be utterly unfair.
And I sincerely pray that Adeosun eventually proves me and other Doubting Thomases wrong because I don’t have any grudge against her and will be genuinely happy for her and Nigeria as a whole if she winds up becoming a shining star on the Federal stage and a major asset to Mr President and the rest of us.
Should Jonathan have stepped down?
Earlier on this week, Raymond Dokpesi – the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, chieftain who owns the AIT channel and is chairing the organising committee of the PDP’s upcoming national stakeholders’ conference – said that his party should have been sensitive to internal zoning issues and should have chosen a Northerner, rather than Dr Goodluck Jonathan, as its 2011 presidential election candidate.
Dokpesi was referring to the fact that when ex-President Yar’Adua died in office in 2010, many Northerners felt that another Northerner should replace him…and were mightily aggrieved when Jonathan deprived the North of this opportunity.
Dokpesi went on to apologise “unreservedly” for this “error”.
Shortly afterwards, the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Olisa Metuh, responded to Dokpesi’s statement by describing it as a mere personal opinion that did not reflect the views of all PDP members or the party’s official position.
I disagree with Dokpesi and can see why some PDP members reject his stance.
I once passionately supported Jonathan, but lost faith in him and voted for Buhari last March because I felt that Jonathan was too weak to provide Nigerians with the type of leadership we needed…and that Buhari was a much stronger man who would fearlessly confront corruption, deal with the Boko Haram insurgency more dynamically and approach governance issues in general in a more inspiring way.
However, it really annoys me when people talk as if Jonathan and the entire South “owed” the North another presidential slot as soon as Yar’Adua died.
I sympathised with Northerners when their Big Brother tragically passed away prematurely. But Northerners had, at that stage, ruled Nigeria for at least 35 of the 50 years that had elapsed since our Independence from British colonialists.
And I didn’t – and still don’t – see why a region that had enjoyed such political supremacy for so long should feel so imperiously entitled to yet another reign at a time when mine and Dokpesi’s region – the long-suffering oil-rich Niger Delta – had not produced a single Head of State, despite producing most of Nigeria’s wealth!
Jonathan came from a zone that had been cheated and neglected for years and years and years and years. And I don’t blame him for not meekly stepping down. As a matter of fact, I was one of the people who urged him to stay firmly put!
Yes, Jonathan disappointed me. But he had every right to be there at that point in our history. And while I’m willing to express regret about his performance, I will NEVER join Dokpesi in slavishly apologising for his ascendancy and presence.
VANGUARD
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