BUHARI: CHOOSING HIS MINISTERS
Nigerians and political watchers across the globe rested their anxiety over the unveiling of President Muhammadu Buhari’s full cabinet few weeks after he was sworn-in when he opened up in July while in the United States of America as guest of President Barack Obama.
President Buhari had attributed the delay in the formation of his cabinet to scarcity of men and women of integrity. He said choosing his ministers is taking too much time because a number of knowledgeable people have been compromised. All the appropriate government agencies, especially security operatives are having hectic time screening batches of nominees for various political offices as the search for men and women with ‘clean hands’ is intensified by the administration.
Obviously there is a paradigm shift in the polity as the change campaign which was used to ouster the Peoples Democratic Party from the centre is steadily manifesting itself in the country right from May 29, when Buhari declared “I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody.” Buhari had sent a signal, he who have ears let him hear. One would have expected that all the nominees of money bag politicians and the political gladiators who supported his aspiration to power and sponsored his campaign hugely will be appointed, but it may not be so if such nominees’ hands are unclean. It is important to commend the president on the criteria he used to select the service chiefs; none of them if they had dreamt of attaining their present position since they have superior officers; but their good record of diligent and honesty had made it so. It was interesting when I saw the Chief of Army Staff, Major-General Tukur Buratai doing a press-up with platoon of soldiers when he visited them in their camp to boost their moral as they work harder to flush out the insurgency that is ravaging the North-East. I didn’t see or hear of such about his predecessors in recent time; the president had just put the round peg in the round hole. And, for the rest of us this is a lesson that no matter what there is a reward for everything; Buhari had skipped their superiors because they were found wanting according to investigation. Gbenga Olajobi, Development and Strategy Department, Babcock University, IlishanRemo, Ogun State