Buhari finally appoints cabinet

NIGERIA’S President Muhammadu Buhari appointed former investment banker Kemi Adeosun as finance minister yesterday, putting her in charge of Africa’s largest economy amid its worst crisis in years, as he swore in members of his long-awaited cabinet.

Buhari worried investors with the five-month wait to put his 36 ministers in place while the economy, reliant on oil exports for 70 percent of government revenues, was hammered by a fall in crude prices and an Islamist insurgency in the north-east.

The 72-year-old former military ruler, who took office on May 29, has said he took the time to vet the candidates as part of his election promise to battle corruption and mismanagement.

Adeosun, 48, is a UK-trained accountant who worked at Nigerian investment bank Chapel Hill Denham and was recently the finance commissioner of south-western Ogun state.

Buhari also appointed Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, the head of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, as junior oil minister, although the president said he would retain overall control of the ministry.

Shortly before announcing the portfolios, Buhari outlined plans to address the slowdown in growth that has weakened the naira, slashed government revenues and driven up inflation.

“We are determined to diversify the economy in agriculture to enhance employment and export certain minerals as a major revenue earner,” he said. “The primary aim is to achieve self-sufficiency in the production of such staples as rice and wheat, and to become a major consumer and exporter of both items, as well as solid minerals.“

Hefty foreign currency restrictions imposed by central bank governor Godwin Emefiele, who filled a vacuum in the absence of a finance minister, have upset investors in recent months. The US and EU raised concerns about the curbs yesterday.

But Adeosun has backed Emefiele’s stance, saying that his approach created “breathing space” for the economy, and that foreign reserves “would have been depleted” without the controls.

“We need to increase ‘made in Nigeria’ as far as possible to support the economy… and that will help us to support the exchange rate,” she said during last month’s screening process.

Razia Khan, the head of Africa research for Standard Chartered, said the finance minister’s seeming endorsement of current policy choices “will disappoint investors who had been hoping for more rapid liberalisation of Nigeria’s foreign exchange market”. – Reuters