Are the All Progressives Congress (APC) and President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB) aware of the great expectations their intense advocacy of change in the campaigns leading to the last general elections aroused among Nigerians? Are they conscious of the fact that the greater the time lag between their formal assumption of office and the manifestation of their promised changes, the greater will be the growing frustrations of sections of the populace with the attendant increasing nostalgia for an idealised past?
It is now nearly five months after PMB was sworn in following the sweeping victory of the APC at the polls. Yet, the party is only just putting in place members of its Federal Executive Council (FEC) to assist the President in driving the machinery of governance. PMB claims he needed sufficient time to pick the very best men and women in terms of competence and moral integrity to work with him. Yet, impressive as the ministerial list he has sent to the National Assembly is, any President could have assembled the team within a month.
For most Nigerians, the APC’s mantra of change remains just a slogan. No one is sure of its concrete content. Does its idea of change mean just a shift of power from Dr Goodluck Jonathan to PMB and from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the APC? Nigerians who voted for the party in droves expect more than that. The very depth of the PDP rot that the APC campaigned vigorously against necessitates a higher degree of sure-footedness, decisiveness and sense of urgency in governance than the APC has shown so far particularly at the centre. This honeymoon can surely not go on forever.
Any follower of this column will know that this writer does not share the sentiment of ethno-regional balancing in perceived juicy political appointments particularly at the expense of merit. Hence, I have refrained from joining the bandwagon of critics who fault the alleged ethno-regional lop-sidedness of PMB’s early appointments. The Federal Character principle of the constitution serves the latent function of ensuring a sense of balance and fair-play among cultural components of a diverse and plural society like ours. But it also serves the manifest function of legitimating the criminal extraction and privatisation of public resources by representative elites in public office purportedly in the interest of their ethno-cultural groups.
I find it astonishing that in these fiscally and economically famished times, PMB, apart from having obtained the approval of the Senate to appoint 13 Special Advisers has sent a list of 36 ministerial nominees to the Senate for confirmation. This makes a FEC of at least 49 members. It is unjustifiable. There is absolutely no difference between this and the PDP era of opulence and waste associated with the costs of governance. Where then is the change?
Some readers aware of my views in this regard have referred me to Section 147 of the 1999 constitution, which requires the President to appoint one minister per state. That section is non-justiciable. It is just like the section on the Directive Principles of State Policy, which demands the implementation of certain social and economic objectives that can only be at the discretion of the President. The Federal Character principle requirement can be met across the different arms, levels and agencies of government and not just in the composition of the FEC. In any case, as Professors J. Isawa Elaigwu and Ali A. Garba have argued “It is important to note that in a federal system, all levels of government operate directly on the people and not through another level. That is the import of multiple poles of power – i.e. non-centralisation”.
However, I must confess that I am also beginning to be disturbed about the possible mindset of PMB in making some of his very sensitive appointments. This is particularly so with his appointment this week of Professor Mahmood Yakubu, a renowned historian as Professor Attahiru Jega’s successor as substantive Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). No one doubts Professor Yakubu’s intellect, integrity, administrative experience and managerial acumen. However, this appointment appears to me very insensitive.
In admitting the flawed nature of the election that brought him to power, the late President Umaru Yar’Adua exhibited uncommon nobility of spirit and integrity. He went on to set up the Justice Mohammed Uwais panel on electoral reforms, which proposed a wide range of reforms to strengthen the electoral process. One of these, which the opposition parties at the time vigorously supported, was that the President would pick the chairman of INEC from a list of three nominees by the National Judicial Council (NJC). Although, President Goodluck Jonathan from the South-south did not implement this reform, he at least picked a man of integrity from the north, Jega, as head of the electoral umpire.
The least one expected of PMB as a northerner was that he would emulate this worthy example and also pick an INEC chairman of intellect, character, experience and integrity from the South. In this respect, we seem to have taken one step backward. This is very unfortunate. In the same vein, I find it curious that a leader with zero-tolerance for corruption like PMB would not consider an anti-corruption and pro-human rights legal icon like Mr Femi Falana (SAN) as a great asset to his government. One seriously hopes that in his decision making process, PMB is not becoming hostage to a narrow ethno-regional cabal the way Jonathan was.
Due to the utter naivety of its politics and rank indiscipline within its ranks, the APC, which controls a majority of members in the National Assembly, is today burdened by an ethically challenged National Assembly leadership that gravely imperils PMB’s much trumpeted anti-corruption war even before it takes off. This is why beyond the media razzmatazz; there is hardly any difference between the utter lack of seriousness and rigour that characterised the screening of ministerial nominees under the PDP-dominated Senate of the past 16 years and the new APC-dominant Senate.
We still have the absurd situation in which Senators are asked to scrutinise and interview ministerial nominees whose portfolios are unknown. It is very comical. Indeed, with the very strong pro-North signal sent out by PMB’s new appointment of the INEC Chairman from his ethno-regional zone, it will be very interesting to see the pattern of his allocation of portfolios to his confirmed ministerial nominees. I hope we will not all be turned into ethnic chauvinists now.
I write this as a wakeup call to the APC. Time is ticking. The people are expectant. If an incumbent party and President could be defeated in 2015, the same feat is not impossible in 2019. The party cannot afford further complacency.
