Editor’s note: President Muhammadu Buhari says that not all ministers will get the portfolio and will serve just as cabinet members.
Amanze Obi, the respected columnist for Daily Sun newspaper, shares his views why the
president doesn’t need the ministers in his government.
Reality is that Buhari does not
need the ministers
We are back to where we started.
Our takeoff point was President Muhammadu Buhari’s reluctance to appoint
ministers. He did not and still does not need them to run his administration.
He demonstrated this much when he declared in France that ministers are
noisemakers. He said their mission in government is usually to represent the
interest of their tiny constituencies and not to serve the fatherland. He told
us that those who do the work in the ministries are civil servants who have the
expertise to man various departments of government.
Many of us, obviously, were not
listening when the president made this declaration. That was why its import was
lost on most of us. We thought the president dropped a thoughtless or, at best,
a careless statement.
Little did we know that the man
meant business. Now, we have woken up to the reality. And that reality is that
Buhari does not need the ministers.
Buhari was forced to appoint
ministers
He appointed them because we
forced him to do so. He appointed them because the Constitution of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) compels him to do so. Thus, in
compliance with the letters, not spirit, of the constitution, and in order to
appear civilian in our eyes, Buhari, albeit reluctantly, appointed ministers.
When he released the list of
ministerial nominees after four months of anxious wait by Nigerians, it was a
partial one. Nigerians could not understand why. They went to work again. They
asked questions. They insinuated a lot of things.
The president must have had a
good laugh then. But he responded shortly afterwards. He gave us a complete
list where every state of the federation was represented.
So much fanfare around ministers
Then the screening of the
ministers began. There was so much fanfare. The atmosphere was rife with
speculations. Anxiety mounted. Who would be cleared? Who would not scale
through the senate screening? To have a hang on this and probably be the first
to know, many Nigerians made the live telecast of the exercise a full time job.
They ensured that they missed
none of the actions that took place in the Senate chambers. The screening,
while it lasted, was quite momentous. Very entertaining. And Nigerians enjoyed
all the side attractions that it provided.
When that ended, we witnessed
another fanfare. The president of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, went visiting. The
klieg lights captured him and Buhari at a handover ceremony. Saraki returned to
the president the list the way he sent it. Every name on it was confirmed. The
screening produced no surprise. No upset. All the noise at the upper chamber of
the National Assembly came to naught. The exercise turned out to be a ritual.
Nigerians, in their characteristic complacency, moved on. They asked no further
questions.
All they wanted at that point was
for the president to assign portfolios to the ministers. In the light of this
expectation, they went on a speculation binge. Lists of ministers and their
speculated portfolios began to fly around. Nigerians love such idle pastimes
and they entertained us to no end with them.
Emperors do not care a hoot about
the preferences or choices of their subjects
But that was as far as it went.
Buhari was not amused by the wild imaginations. He was not persuaded by our
mindset. Thus, while we had, on our own, given the ministers the job we would
like them to do, the president had a different mindset.
He came out with a shocker – he
will not assign portfolios to ministers. They will just be there as cabinet
members. That was astounding. It swept many off their feet. And they have begun
another round of debate over Buhari and the appointment of ministers. That is
where we are now. But that takes us back to the beginning. It reminds us of the
fact that the president never wanted to appoint ministers in the first place.
But having been forced to do so,
he will not assign portfolios to them because that will serve no purpose. He
did not appoint them to serve. He appointed them to satisfy our yearnings and
douse the agitations. That is the way it is. The president has said so. But we
are, as always, free to entertain ourselves with whatever we think or feel. But
Mr. President will be bothered by none of that. Emperors do not care a hoot
about the preferences or choices of their subjects. And so does Buhari.
Amanze Obi is the columnist
for Daily Sun newspaper.He served as a commissioner
under former governor Ikedi Ohakim of Imo state and recently lost his
mother-in-law, Madam Patricia Nwereme Anyanwu.
Source: Naij.com
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