A Brief Assessment Of Buhari's 'Noisemakers'
In September 2015, more than four months after he was inaugurated as President of the Federal Republic, Mohammadu Buhari, under pressure to constitute cabinet, told Nigerians that ministers were not actually necessary to run a government. His reason? They make a lot of noise. He simply dubbed them noisemakers. He professed his preference to rather work with permanent secretaries. His professed dislike for ministers did not however deter Nigerians from pressurising him to constitute a cabinet and give jobs to some politicians who worked to make him president.
A few weeks later, President Buhari forwarded names of his preferences for ministerial jobs to the Senate for confirmation. The list came in two batches. When the names were read out, many Nigerians expressed disappointment that it had taken the president almost six months to identify the same persons, who had worked with him in his numerous campaigns to become president from the All Nigeria Peoples Party to Congress for Progressive Change to All Progressives Congress. However, Nigerians expressed hope that the new-old team would help the President to turn things around and deliver the promised change.
So, on November 11, 2015, the ministers were inaugurated and portfolios assigned to them. This means that by November 11, 2017, the ministers would have been 24 months in office. They are about 20 months in office now. The level of impact they have made on society from their different offices is directly proportional to their understanding of their roles and the need for change. Publicly, some of them are known while some are unknown. Some of them have become ubiquitous while some have been reclusive. Some confirm Buhari’s view of them as noisemakers while some seem clearly like crabs smoked out of their holes.
A cursory look at the ministers would show that Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, has been more involved in the politics of Aso Rock than he has been in interpreting legal conundrums around the federal government, though he has managed to keep a low head. His legal opinion, and interpretation of Section 171 of the constitution, as it affects Senate’s rejection of Ibrahim Magu as chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, creates a constitutional issue for government.
His colleague at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, has done well sharing pictures and updates of visits to him, and by him, on twitter than he has done impacting onNigeria’s foreign relations. It is to his credit that Nigeria has lost its place on the continent and in ECOWAS. Under his watch, many Nigerians employed at the ECOWAS Secretariat in Abuja have lost placements to francophone employees. He supervised Nigeria’s disastrous outing at the African Union general assembly in January 2017 and also watched as Francophone West Africa upstaged Nigeria in ECOWAS. He also failed to rise to the occasion when Xenophobia rose again in South Africa hitting Nigerians there hard. It took a bold challenge by Abike Dabiri-Erewa to wake him. But he is very good with his twitter nevertheless.
The Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, is seen as representing everything that is unserious about the government. She has failed to betray public opinion that she is a classic misfit for the assignment. Though she speaks refined English, she creates the impression that the task of a finance minister has nothing to do with economic planning but more with catching ghost workers. Publicly, she has laid claims to catching more ghost workers and saving the country what would have been lost revenue than she has been able to lift one SME from the sands with her policy. Many Nigerians clearly do not seem to understand what exactly her economic focus were and are. It is believed that her demonstrated lack of capacity was responsible for her name featuring in almost every insinuation about cabinet shake-up.
Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan Ali, has remained a professional. He has refused to play for the gallery and remained focused on achieving results. He is not seen to have made as many public pronouncements as many of his colleagues. Many Nigerians believe that he is on the top of his assignment but his counterpart at the Ministry of Education, Adamu Adamu, has courted more destructive controversy than any of his predecessors. He often leaves many wondering if the office was the same once occupied by Prof. Ruqayyatu Rufa’i. The minister presents himself as an executioner of biased policies, which aim at expanding the gulf between Nigerians over religious education. His decision to implement the policy on the removal of Christian Religious Knowledge from primary school curriculum has created more negative impressions than he may have envisaged.
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