PRESIDENT
Muhammadu Buhari, perhaps, shocked ministers-designate when he dropped a
bombshell in New Delhi, India, during a three-day official visit to the
Asian country for India-Africa summit. He had told newsmen that not all
members of the yet-to-be constituted cabinet would man ministries. The
president, banking on Section 147 of the 1999 Constitution, declared
that he was only mandated by the constitution to appoint a minister from
each of the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). He said
he was no under compulsion to assign portfolios to all the ministers.
For any of the nominees, who might have thought that the statement was made to impress Buhari’s Asian hosts, the reiteration of the matter by Buhari during a meeting with the Senate President, Dr BukolaSaraki, on Tuesday, would have erased any doubt as to whether the policy has come to stay or not, at least for Buhari’s government.
The idea was prevalent in the 60’s, particularly in the defunct Western Region government of the Action Group. During that period in history, it used to be the case that prominent traditional rulers openly engaged in partisan politics and some of them got rewarded when their party won an election and went on for form government.
For instance, the late Odemo of Isara Remo, Ogun State and founding father of the defunct Action Group, Oba Samuel Akinsanya, was appointed a minister without portfolio between 1952 and 1955. It was the same for the late Olowo of Owo in Ondo State, Oba Olateru Olagbegi, in the then Western Region government. Both were also leading members of the Western House of Chiefs in Ibadan and got rewarded for their commitment to their party. A similar scenario played out during the government of the late Chief Bola Ige when the late Ataoja of Osogbo, Oba IyiolaMatanmi, was appointed a commissioner without portfolio. There are many other examples in the First and Second Republic.
Outside Nigeria, the practice is also adopted. For example in Jamaica’s Westminster-type parliamentary democracy, there are ministers, ministers of state and ministers without portfolios. Its ministers of states are assigned one responsibility and are addressed as junior ministers in the Jamaican press. The country’s ministers without portfolio each take on one of the subsidiary duties assigned to the office of the prime minister or made to handle one of the tasks in the regular ministries. They are addressed as ‘minister without portfolio’ then followed by the duty assigned to them. Like the ministers of states, they are not seen as members of the cabinet and cannot vote when cabinet decisions so require.
The idea of appointing ministers without assigning them to specific ministries is also in operation in the United Kingdom, although one person is so appointed. The position of a minister without portfolio is seen as an unusual cabinet position because the holder of such position does not have any departmental responsibilities. The creation of such title is done to reward the beneficiary for their loyalty to the party or government. It is also done as a sort of political solution to crisis within a party or government. Ultimately, it is a product of a coalition government and the office may not exist when a single party wins enough seats in the parliament to form government. Unlike in Jamaica, a minister without portfolio in the UK contributes to the decision-making processes and policies of government.
It may be argued that the government of President Buhari came to power through the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC). It is more or less a coalition government, especially when the contributions of the New PDP elements are factored into the success of the party. However, the reasons advanced by Buhari for the policy is the declining government finances which has necessitated the need to run a lean government.
“Yes, there used to be 42 ministers. I think we will be lucky if we can have half of that now because we cannot afford it. Others may not be substantive ministers, but they will sit in the cabinet because that is what the constitution says and we cannot operate outside the constitution.
“Where is the money? You must have known that the Federal Government had to help 27 of the 36 states to pay salaries. Nigeria cannot pay salaries. The Federal Government itself had to summon the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria to see how to talk of the agreements we signed with foreign countries, counterpart funding and so on. This country was materially vandalised,” Buhari said.
The president had been advised by the Ahmed Joda-led Transition Committee in an 800-page report to prune the number of ministries to 19, as part of measures to infuse cost-efficiency into his government. Also recognising the provision of the constitution that each state must have a minister, the committee had recommended 19 full-fledged ministers 17 ministers of state (junior ministers).
The committee equally advised the merger of some ministries, as well as agencies with overlapping or redundant functions. Only nine ministries were spared in the merger proposal. They are: industry, trade and investment; education, defence, FCT, finance, labour and productivity, justice, foreign affairs and national planning.
According to the committee, the ministries of mines and steel development, petroleum resources and power should become one ministry to be named ministry of energy; environment, land and urban development as well as works and housing should fuse into works, housing and environment. The ministries of aviation and transport are recommended to be merged as ministry of transport and to take care of aviation, rail, water and transport systems.
“There is no direct relationship between the number of ministries and efficacy of service delivery. The US with a population of 316 million and with GDP of $17,328 trillion (30 times Nigeria’s GDP) has 15 ministries. India has 24 ministries, while the UK has 17.
“The current structure with 28 ministries and 542 agencies (50 of which have no enabling laws) [results in] very high cost of governance. The portfolios of ministries are not responsive to all the major critical national challenges such as family and child affairs; religious affairs; vulnerable and elderly group affairs as well as the North-eastern crisis,” the committee was quoted to have submitted.
Not a few commentators have expressed their views on the presidential policy. Senate President, Dr Saraki, while speaking with State House correspondents on Tuesday, said there was nothing novel about it but agreed with Buhari that the economic realities of the country warranted the policy.“Well, I think before we had ministers of state in the past, I don’t think there is anything new. There were ministers for special duties which really didn’t have portfolios. I think the key issue is being in the cabinet, being part of the government and those that would have the responsibilities of ministering are those that at the end of the day would do that,” he stated.
However, the publicity secretary of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Olisah Metuh, queried why the president predicated the decision on bad economy rather than explaining to Nigerians that it was the style he had chosen to adopt. “It is his style and it is his prerogative. We are not struggling for space with him, and the constitution does not require him to assign portfolios to all 36 ministers.”
A Board of Trustees member of the PDP, Chief Ebenezer Babatope, said: ““If he decides to do that, we have to accept it as his style but it is not the ideal thing. This is not the first time such will happen in Nigeria. Let us watch and see how it works. It is from watching that we will know whether he is doing it in the interest of Nigeria or not. If it succeeds, we will give him kudos.”
But the Akwa Ibom State-born former Minister of Petroleum, Chief Don Etiebet, saw nothing wrong with the policy as long as it would help the president to achieve his goal for the country. “He is the President and has a herculean task of saving this country from collapse. I believe the buck stops on his table and not on any minister’s desk.”
A former General-Secretary of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), Chief Frank Kokori also supported the decision. According to him, “In the First Republic, we had ministers without portfolios. They were like ministers of special duties. There are so many jobs to be done, and they can be assigned to do any of them by the President without necessarily having portfolios.Buhari knows what he is doing because the rot in the system is not quantifiable. As it is, we should watch him and see what happens. It will not be fair to condemn the move without seeing if it will work or not.”
Observers however note that the policy has naturally raised some questions the answers to which will determine a lot of things about the five-month-old government. First is the question of what criteria are available for President Buhari to ‘bench’ some ministers and ‘field’ others, in a country where ethnic sentiment is so strong and recognised as federal character in the constitution? Already, criticisms have dogged the appointments made so far by the president who has been accused of favouring the North to the detriment of the South.
What will be the president’s explanation to agitators from states whose ministers will be ‘benched,’ especially where such agitations have always been accompanied by the argument of the number of votes they delivered for the party and the president and upon which it was possible for the government to come into being? If the strength of APC in each of the states or the number of votes delivered will not be a criterion, will the president consider benching ministers from states which already have appointees in his government? Or is the president going to be substituting the ‘fielded ministers’ when they get tired or sustain ‘political injury’ with those in the ‘reserve bench?’ In the country where the assignment of the status of junior ministers (ministers of state) to some states has generated angry reactions in the past, the new policy is sure to create ripples across the polity.
For any of the nominees, who might have thought that the statement was made to impress Buhari’s Asian hosts, the reiteration of the matter by Buhari during a meeting with the Senate President, Dr BukolaSaraki, on Tuesday, would have erased any doubt as to whether the policy has come to stay or not, at least for Buhari’s government.
The idea was prevalent in the 60’s, particularly in the defunct Western Region government of the Action Group. During that period in history, it used to be the case that prominent traditional rulers openly engaged in partisan politics and some of them got rewarded when their party won an election and went on for form government.
For instance, the late Odemo of Isara Remo, Ogun State and founding father of the defunct Action Group, Oba Samuel Akinsanya, was appointed a minister without portfolio between 1952 and 1955. It was the same for the late Olowo of Owo in Ondo State, Oba Olateru Olagbegi, in the then Western Region government. Both were also leading members of the Western House of Chiefs in Ibadan and got rewarded for their commitment to their party. A similar scenario played out during the government of the late Chief Bola Ige when the late Ataoja of Osogbo, Oba IyiolaMatanmi, was appointed a commissioner without portfolio. There are many other examples in the First and Second Republic.
Outside Nigeria, the practice is also adopted. For example in Jamaica’s Westminster-type parliamentary democracy, there are ministers, ministers of state and ministers without portfolios. Its ministers of states are assigned one responsibility and are addressed as junior ministers in the Jamaican press. The country’s ministers without portfolio each take on one of the subsidiary duties assigned to the office of the prime minister or made to handle one of the tasks in the regular ministries. They are addressed as ‘minister without portfolio’ then followed by the duty assigned to them. Like the ministers of states, they are not seen as members of the cabinet and cannot vote when cabinet decisions so require.
The idea of appointing ministers without assigning them to specific ministries is also in operation in the United Kingdom, although one person is so appointed. The position of a minister without portfolio is seen as an unusual cabinet position because the holder of such position does not have any departmental responsibilities. The creation of such title is done to reward the beneficiary for their loyalty to the party or government. It is also done as a sort of political solution to crisis within a party or government. Ultimately, it is a product of a coalition government and the office may not exist when a single party wins enough seats in the parliament to form government. Unlike in Jamaica, a minister without portfolio in the UK contributes to the decision-making processes and policies of government.
It may be argued that the government of President Buhari came to power through the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC). It is more or less a coalition government, especially when the contributions of the New PDP elements are factored into the success of the party. However, the reasons advanced by Buhari for the policy is the declining government finances which has necessitated the need to run a lean government.
“Yes, there used to be 42 ministers. I think we will be lucky if we can have half of that now because we cannot afford it. Others may not be substantive ministers, but they will sit in the cabinet because that is what the constitution says and we cannot operate outside the constitution.
“Where is the money? You must have known that the Federal Government had to help 27 of the 36 states to pay salaries. Nigeria cannot pay salaries. The Federal Government itself had to summon the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria to see how to talk of the agreements we signed with foreign countries, counterpart funding and so on. This country was materially vandalised,” Buhari said.
The president had been advised by the Ahmed Joda-led Transition Committee in an 800-page report to prune the number of ministries to 19, as part of measures to infuse cost-efficiency into his government. Also recognising the provision of the constitution that each state must have a minister, the committee had recommended 19 full-fledged ministers 17 ministers of state (junior ministers).
The committee equally advised the merger of some ministries, as well as agencies with overlapping or redundant functions. Only nine ministries were spared in the merger proposal. They are: industry, trade and investment; education, defence, FCT, finance, labour and productivity, justice, foreign affairs and national planning.
According to the committee, the ministries of mines and steel development, petroleum resources and power should become one ministry to be named ministry of energy; environment, land and urban development as well as works and housing should fuse into works, housing and environment. The ministries of aviation and transport are recommended to be merged as ministry of transport and to take care of aviation, rail, water and transport systems.
“There is no direct relationship between the number of ministries and efficacy of service delivery. The US with a population of 316 million and with GDP of $17,328 trillion (30 times Nigeria’s GDP) has 15 ministries. India has 24 ministries, while the UK has 17.
“The current structure with 28 ministries and 542 agencies (50 of which have no enabling laws) [results in] very high cost of governance. The portfolios of ministries are not responsive to all the major critical national challenges such as family and child affairs; religious affairs; vulnerable and elderly group affairs as well as the North-eastern crisis,” the committee was quoted to have submitted.
Not a few commentators have expressed their views on the presidential policy. Senate President, Dr Saraki, while speaking with State House correspondents on Tuesday, said there was nothing novel about it but agreed with Buhari that the economic realities of the country warranted the policy.“Well, I think before we had ministers of state in the past, I don’t think there is anything new. There were ministers for special duties which really didn’t have portfolios. I think the key issue is being in the cabinet, being part of the government and those that would have the responsibilities of ministering are those that at the end of the day would do that,” he stated.
However, the publicity secretary of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Olisah Metuh, queried why the president predicated the decision on bad economy rather than explaining to Nigerians that it was the style he had chosen to adopt. “It is his style and it is his prerogative. We are not struggling for space with him, and the constitution does not require him to assign portfolios to all 36 ministers.”
A Board of Trustees member of the PDP, Chief Ebenezer Babatope, said: ““If he decides to do that, we have to accept it as his style but it is not the ideal thing. This is not the first time such will happen in Nigeria. Let us watch and see how it works. It is from watching that we will know whether he is doing it in the interest of Nigeria or not. If it succeeds, we will give him kudos.”
But the Akwa Ibom State-born former Minister of Petroleum, Chief Don Etiebet, saw nothing wrong with the policy as long as it would help the president to achieve his goal for the country. “He is the President and has a herculean task of saving this country from collapse. I believe the buck stops on his table and not on any minister’s desk.”
A former General-Secretary of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), Chief Frank Kokori also supported the decision. According to him, “In the First Republic, we had ministers without portfolios. They were like ministers of special duties. There are so many jobs to be done, and they can be assigned to do any of them by the President without necessarily having portfolios.Buhari knows what he is doing because the rot in the system is not quantifiable. As it is, we should watch him and see what happens. It will not be fair to condemn the move without seeing if it will work or not.”
Observers however note that the policy has naturally raised some questions the answers to which will determine a lot of things about the five-month-old government. First is the question of what criteria are available for President Buhari to ‘bench’ some ministers and ‘field’ others, in a country where ethnic sentiment is so strong and recognised as federal character in the constitution? Already, criticisms have dogged the appointments made so far by the president who has been accused of favouring the North to the detriment of the South.
What will be the president’s explanation to agitators from states whose ministers will be ‘benched,’ especially where such agitations have always been accompanied by the argument of the number of votes they delivered for the party and the president and upon which it was possible for the government to come into being? If the strength of APC in each of the states or the number of votes delivered will not be a criterion, will the president consider benching ministers from states which already have appointees in his government? Or is the president going to be substituting the ‘fielded ministers’ when they get tired or sustain ‘political injury’ with those in the ‘reserve bench?’ In the country where the assignment of the status of junior ministers (ministers of state) to some states has generated angry reactions in the past, the new policy is sure to create ripples across the polity.
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