Buhari’s ministerial choices: Party loyalty trumps technocratic competence

‘ Those who had been with Buhari “through trying times” included those who supported his presidential ambitions under his old party, Congress for Change, CPC, and those who were actively part of his successful 2015 presidential election campaign under his new party, the All Progressives Congress, APC

Before unveiling his ministerial list, nearly three months into his second term, President Buhari told Nigerians that he would not appoint unknown persons into his new cabinet. “This time around”, Buhari said, “I am going to be quite me”. He went on: “Me in the sense that I will pick people I personally know”! So, no “strangers”, only chums!

But President Buhari is, as a Chatham House report once said, “an aloof and disengaged leader, ‘walled off’ from most Nigerians”. So, given that he should form a cabinet consisting of some of Nigeria’s best and brightest, the question was: how many of such people did he personally know? How many world-class technocrats – scientists, economists, political economists, name them – does Buhari personally know across Nigeria? It was a tall order for a very reclusive president!

And, indeed, so it was! The ministerial list that President Buhari sent to the Senate on 23 July was shockingly political, devoid of any credible technocratic mind. The list was made up of loyal associates, campaign hacks and party apologists. When President Buhari said he would only appoint people “I personally know”, it turned out that he meant politicians, career politicians! Evidently, despite Nigeria’s great talent pool, Buhari doesn’t seem personally to know anyone of ministerial quality outside his political neck of the woods!

The political nature of the ministerial appointments is really striking. For instance, of the 36 ministers in Buhari’s first term only 14 were reappointed, and all are politicians. Anyone who remotely looked like a technocrat, such as Dr Okechukwu

Enelamah, Buhari’s first-term minister of investment, trade and industry, was excluded from the new ministerial team.

Indeed, Enelamah’s case is interesting. He was arguably the most active and reformist minister in Buhari’s first term. He drove the government’s ease of doing business agenda and successfully led, at the ministerial level, the negotiation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AFCFTA) agreement, which President Buhari recently, if belatedly, signed. Of course, no one is indispensable, and the development and implementation of any government policy should not depend solely on one individual. Yet, any president interested in technocratic competence, rather than just politics, would reappoint Enelamah to continue to drive forward the reform agenda. But, apparently, Enelamah was one of the first-term ministers that Buhari didn’t “personally know”. And such “unknown persons” have no place in his secondterm administration.

But who are those Buhari “personally knows” who made it into his second-term cabinet? Well, as noted above, out of the 36 first-term ministers, 14, all of them politicians, will return to the government. Among the returning ministers are former governors Babatunde Fashola, Rotimi Amaechi, Chris Ngige and Ogbonnaya Onu. These politicians held some of the most important portfolios, such as power, housing, transport, employment and science and technology, but, apart from “making a lot of noise”, which is what Buhari thinks ministers do, they failed woefully to make any significant impact. Where meritocracy counts, they won’t return to government. But politics matters more. So, they are returning! The second category of those personally known to Buhari who will be in his second-term government are his old political disciples. In 2015, when President Buhari was criticised for the lop-sidedness of his appointments, his response was that those he appointed had been with him “through trying times”, adding: “What then is the reward of such dedication and suffering?” Those who had been with Buhari “through trying times” included those who supported his presidential ambitions under his old party, Congress for Change, CPC, and those who were actively part of his successful 2015 presidential election campaign under his new party, the All Progressives Congress, APC. For many years, Buhari’s wife, Aisha, had complained that these people were not rewarded. But, now, the president has brought most of them, such as Olurunimbe Mamora, Mahmoud Abubakar and Sharon Ikeazor, into his cabinet. They are those he personally knows!

Another category of those Buhari personally knows who he is bringing into his second-term administration consists of people who played critical roles in his re-election earlier this year. Some of those prominent campaign hacks are Festus Keyamo, SAN, a Buharist, who was the director of strategic communications for Buhari’s re-election campaign, and Gbemisola Saraki, sister of former Senate President Bukola Saraki, Buhari’s bugbear, who played a pivotal role in securing Kwara State for Buhari’s re-election. They both made the ministerial list. Prominent politicians, such as former governors Godswill Akpabio, Timipre Sylva and George Akume, who played key roles in garnering support for Buhari’s re-election in the South-south and the Middle-belt are also rewarded with ministerial appointments.

Of course, it is impossible to talk about Buhari’s 2015 and 2019 election victories without mentioning the APC national leader, Bola Tinubu, former governor of Lagos State. Well, he too got those personally known to him and, by extension, to Buhari into the cabinet. They include Tinubu’s former chief of staff, Sunday Dare, and former governor of Osun State, Rauf Aregbesola. Former governor Adeniyi Adebayo of Ekiti State also made the list, as did several former senators.

So, Buhari has decided to form his second-term cabinet completely in his image. It’s a bloated government of 43 ministers, all of them career politicians, but just 7 women!

But what is wrong with a wholly political cabinet? Well, two things. First, it is absolutely wrong to have a cabinet consisting only of career politicians, who see everything through the prism of politics and political calculations. Of course, in a democracy, given the constraints of intra-party politics, you can’t form a cabinet that excludes career politicians or that ignores those who helped you win an election. But a good cabinet must have a substantial representation of nonpolitician technocrats, those brought in purely because of their technical expertise and knowledge of the institutions and policies that work in delivering social and economic progress. Buhari’s new cabinet lacks such technocracy.

The second problem with the political cabinet is that it will be made up of “yesmen” and “yes-women”. The toe-curling display of blind loyalty during the Senate screening session when the ministerial nominees were simply told to “just take a bow and go” or were asked some mickey-mouse questions was a clear pointer to how the new ministers would behave in Buhari’s cabinet; unquestioning, subservient and acquiescent. That’s why, after all, Buhari appointed those he personally knows. The “take-a-bowand-go cabinet”, as someone tweeted, is also likely to be a rubber-stamp cabinet. But, as the Financial Times puts it in an editorial, “Surrounding yourself with ministerial doormats and excluding those ready to make opposing arguments is not sound politics”.

Truth is, ministers matter. They are not just “the messengers”, as one commentator recently said. They can or should be able to influence the message. Indeed, under Nigeria’s Constitution, the cabinet is the country’s highest policymaking body, responsible for “determining the general direction of domestic and foreign policies of the Government of the Federation”. Surely, you can’t have ministerial poodles for such an important policymaking role.

Note: the rest of this article continues in the online edition of Business Day @ https://businessday.ng

a London-based lawyer and political economist, is a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics. e-mail: o.fasan@lse.ac.uk, twitter account: @olu_fasan