It would not be wrong to say the past week was eventful in Nigeria. There were very many issues that made the headlines and created the impression the country was on the track of positive movement. Most significantly, the President who has been out of the country since October 2, returned penultimate Saturday and effected the most extensive cabinet reshuffle of his 17-month old administration.
After two weeks of absence from Nigeria, the return of President Bola Tinubu raised hopes that his much advertised working leave would return the country to some sort of positive movement. Expectations were high, especially because presidential spokesman, Bayo Onanuga had whetted the appetite of Nigerians when he said a cabinet reshuffle was imminent and that the President’s working leave was to enable him “reflect on his administration’s economic reforms.”
The ‘reflection’ finally produced a cabinet shake-up that fell far below expectations. The extensive downsizing of his 45-member cabinet and an administration that has been creating jobs for the boys, did not happen; it rather increased. Curiously so. President Tinubu sacked only five ministers and named seven new ones, and reassigned 10 others to new portfolios.
Despite poor performance records, the ministers of finance, defence and power, the junior Minister of Petroleum Resources as well as Governor of the Central Bank, retained their positions. The overhaul of the economic team that has failed in stabilizing the national currency and the fallout of removal of petrol and electricity subsidies and other policies that have sent inflation soaring to over 32%, triggering a cost-of-living crisis, was not to be.
The cabinet, just like other departments of his government, remains bloated with billions of Naira of mainly borrowed funds being expended in maintaining it.
The retention of former Zamfara State governor, Bello Natawalle, as Minister of State for Defence, also smacks of insensitivity. What justification does the man alleged to be hands-in-gloves with bandits and terrorists in Nigeria’s North West region have to continue to sit in office as minister? The damning allegation coming from no less than a quarter than Governor Dauda Lawal of Zamfara State, who succeeded the minister as the helmsman in the state, may not have been proven but they are enough, ordinarily, to warrant Matawalle to resign from office to clear his name.
He has not done so. In spite of the fact that it remains a mere allegation, it is still a major stain on the image of the Tinubu administration.
The question is: how does the President and his National Security Adviser sit comfortably with a man who, ordinarily, should be pulled in for questioning? Is it not despicable that, of all jobs that Matawalle can be offered, it is the defence portfolio that Tinubu finds him most suitable for?
Beyond that, the cabinet reshuffle has also opened up another line of criticism as the South-East geopolitical zone continues to face marginalization in this administration, waking up to a further downgrading. Those whose hopes were raised that a cabinet reshuffle would address the marginalization of the region, had their hopes painfully dashed. Notably, the sack of former Minister of Women Affairs, Uju Ohaneye did not surprise many, but it was unfair for the zone to lose a full minister and gain the appointment of Bianca Ojukwu as a Minister of State. Unfair as it is, it has left the zone with just one full minister while over 70 percent of appointees from the President’s South-West are shipped to Grade A ministries as full ministers.
Ohanenye may not have done well, largely because of her brash personal character, but others abound within the administration who have not done much beyond the way they were packaged as wizzkids. There are many but the fumbling Minister of the Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo readily comes to mind. Sold as a magic man who would turn around the ministry and put the issuance of the Nigerian passports on supersonic speed, Tunji-Ojo has all but cripped the process within the Nigerian Immigration Office. Under his watch, the issuance of the green booklet could last all of two months while officials of the passport issuance office turn the job into a major racket.
Tinubu has been criticized for continuing – some say he has surpassed – the policy of official marginalization of the South-East in the distribution of official portfolios. The last reshuffle further worsens the South-East zone’s federal representation, which has stoked further regional discontent.
According to Eyinnaya Abaribe, the Senator representing Abia South, the reshuffle did not represent any form of advancement for the Southeast region, mainly because it failed to address their concerns of equity and inclusivity. He views it as a breach of the federal character principle, a constitutional mandate requiring fair representation across Nigeria’s regions which “the president has breached for the last 18 months.”
It is tragic, coming from an administration that promised to right the wrongs of the past and put the nation on the pedestal of unity, hope and inclusiveness.