The much-awaited cabinet reshuffle by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu came last Wednesday but I will be surprised if the shape and character of the reshuffle did not disappoint many. Most of the new names qualify as unknown quantities. Add this to the fact that many of the existing cabinet members were also names that did not ring a bell.
If I attend an interview where I am asked questions on Ministers and their portfolios or even the state that they represent, I confess I will fail woefully! I cannot even claim to know the Minister or Ministers representing my state and their portfolio! I must admit, though, that this may partly be a function of my own limitations.
Some folks are silent achievers. We are likely to find them in the Tinubu cabinet, such that as time wears out, some of them may etch their name in gold with their stellar performance. They may come in incognito but leave as national heroes and heroines or even as international celebrities. I wish and pray for such to happen!
Cabinet reshuffles present presidents and governors with a vista of opportunities to chart a new course and enact a new beginning; correct mistakes made; reinvigorate the cabinet; energize it; recalibrate it; weed off dead woods; place round pegs in round holes; bring in new hands; transfuse fresh blood into the system; play around with fresh ideas and new ways not only of thinking but also of doing things; set new templates, parameters and mandates; respond to criticisms and new challenges, thereby demonstrating that its feedback mechanism is alive and well; re-invent the government and recover lost ground, lost trust and lost confidence; and line up the citizenry solidly behind the government and its plans, programmes and policies.
For Tinubu whose campaign mantra was “Renewed Hope”, the cabinet reshuffle was a golden opportunity for him to restore the sagging hope of the people in his leadership and point them in the way forward. Did he succeed in doing that?
What is certain, however, is that Tinubu is a man of immense courage, great daring and audacity. It is not every president or governor that summons the courage to reshuffle their cabinet – the same way many of them shy away from signing death warrants! In his eight years in office, Buhari removed only two of his Ministers. In a little less than one-and-half years in office, Tinubu has deemed it fit to reshuffle his cabinet, removing five Ministers at a go. We may still expect more to come.
Give it to Tinubu, he is a man imbued with a large dose of courage. In his allocutus during the orchestrated sedition trial (1963), the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, quoted Hugh Walpole, author of “Fortitude”, as saying: ‘Tis not life that matters, but the courage you bring to it”.
To escape from the vile dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha, into self-imposed exile and become an important member of the opposition National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), is courage. To escape the President Olusegun Obasanjo-contrived tsunami that uprooted all other Alliance for Democracy governors of the South-west in 2003 demanded uncommon courage. To go forward and not only survive the same President Obasanjo’s seizure of Lagos State local government funds but also leverage the challenge to make Lagos, perhaps, the only state out of the country’s 36 that can survive without allocations from the Federation Account takes courage.
Ever before the country’s Independence in 1960, efforts by politicians to form alliances have floundered at the altar of greed and suspicion and for Tinubu to succeed where even the founding fathers failed abjectly, in cobbling together the All Progressives Congress (APC) that wrested power from the ruling Peoples Democratic Party in 2015 demands courage and uncommon foresight.
Yes, it takes a man imbued with foresight to deny himself today with the hope of reaping tomorrow. What a gambit! Hence his “Emilokan” desperation when he was about to be denied what he thought was rightfully his! When the trophy he had laboured for and sacrificed so much for was slipping through his fingers, he opened mouth, as they say!
It takes a man of unequalled courage to stoically suffer all the indignities he was subjected to throughout the eight years of Buhari’s rule without losing sight of his goal. Many times they gave him a bloodied nose; he was undeterred. His head, too, was bloodied; yet, unbowed! Tinubu literally stooped to conquer.
To snatch the APC presidential flag from the Buhari/Daura cabal hallmarked Tinubu’s political sagacity. To win the February 2023 presidential election despite the daunting obstacles stacked against him – unwavering, unhasting, unrelenting – shows the stuff of which Tinubu is made. I am bold to say that he is made of sterner stuff than many of his political adversaries! Mere mortals would have fainted when Tinubu waxed stronger. Other men would have turned their back where he undauntedly forged ahead.
Did Tinubu make Proverbs 24: 10 his forte? That scripture says if you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small! Other scriptures say men ought always to pray and not to faint (Luke 18:1). Galatians 6:9 admonishes us not to become weary doing good for in due course we will reap if we faint not.
This is not to say anything of the courage Tinubu reportedly suddenly “summoned” on his first day in office while reading his inauguration address to blurt out that “fuel subsidy is gone”, which, unfortunately, the whole country suffers from today. This shows that not all courage is positive or advisable. The elders counsel that if you wield power; learn to temper it! M’oja; m’osa l’a n mo akikanju!
How will Tinubu’s cabinet reshuffle resonate with the people when virtually all the critical areas where people had hoped there would be some rethinking were left untouched? Does it mean that the president is satisfied with the performance of the helmsman manning those positions?
Did Tinubu make Proverbs 24: 10 his forte? That scripture says if you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small! Other scriptures say men ought always to pray and not to faint (Luke 18:1). Galatians 6:9 admonishes us not to become weary doing good for in due course we will reap if we faint not.
The security architecture was left untouched despite the worsening state of insecurity in many parts of the country. Is there anything the president knows that the ordinary citizens are not aware of? Power supply is another area where the people are being roasted alive; yet, the Minister in charge survived the cabinet shake-up. Once it became certain that a shake-up was imminent, power became relatively stable in my Agege area of Lagos State. Is this a hoodwink, deceit or bribe?
The cost of foodstuffs has become prohibitive and no one knows what the Ministers in charge of Agriculture are doing about it; yet, they escaped the axe! Finance and the Central Bank also sit pretty despite the “palongo” that the national currency, the Naira, dances daily in the foreign exchange market. The unrelenting depreciation of the Naira is responsible for the hike in the price of virtually everything – imported and local.
The “Oga Patapata” of them all, the General Overseer of them all is the Petroleum Ministry/NNPC where nothing has been done to rejig the unholy alliance causing the citizenry so much pain. Tinubu himself sits pretty as the Minister of Petroleum Resources; he did not sack or reshuffle himself. Many had expected he would at least hands off the Ministry as well as rejig the whole NNPC apparatus. Had he done that, he would have given Nigerians something to cheer for!
Any positives from the cabinet reshuffle? Of course, yes! It would have been scandalous had Betta Edu returned to the cabinet as was being whispered all over the place. So, with her not returning, many will heave a sigh of relief. It is also in order that the woman in women affairs was asked to “comot”, as they say. She amassed two scandals in quick succession that cannot be easily glossed over.
I don’t know much about the others who were sacked; so also about many of those newly enlisted. Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu (nee Onoh) is the only household name among the lot – whether for good or bad reasons is a topic for another day!
The sack of the Education minister, Tahir Mamman, raises questions: Is it because of the JAMB/admission age controversy? It could not have been because the law is extant, as they say; the sacked Minister only insisted the law be enforced. Maybe he did not do his homework well with the implementation, in the same way no proper homework was done before “fuel subsidy is gone” was blurted out. In both instances, we saw the chaos that followed!
I wasted no time in throwing out of the window the other suggestion that Mamman’s alleged rapport with the unions might have been responsible for his sack! How can that be? His tenure, short-lived as it was, witnessed industrial peace on our campuses. At the last JAMB stakeholders meeting, his soundbites were positive: He emphasized the need for cordial relations between management and labour unions in the institutions of higher learning; he also warned Governing Councils against leveraging their positions to fleece the institutions and tax payers.
Well, I give it to the president that he knows what he is doing, even though his cabinet appears more like a cabinet of the anonymous. Tinubu’s saving grace is, if, in the end, his cabinet delivers the good and proves every critic wrong. Otherwise…
Calling the attention of the Power minister, PHCN and allied forces
Electricity power consumers are being asked to change their current meters – Why? The meters in use are not faulty; so, why change them? Is it that they are not running and burning credit fast enough for PHCN to milk the people better? What is the rationale for the change? Who pays for the new meter? Is it the consumer or PHCN? Whose property is the meter – PHCN or the consumers? So, will PHCN supply the new meters free of charge if it is their property?
Why should consumers pay for meters and or pay for their installation? What is the job of PHCN? Now, why the short notice of November 14, 2024? When shall we stop our fire brigade approach to matters of critical importance? Who owns the companies vending and or installing the new meters? What conflict of interest is involved here in the typical Nigerian way of factoring corruption into everything?
It does not appear as if those in positions of leadership in this country understand the hardship the people are going through. Otherwise, why this new meter wahala at this point in time? To quote ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, maybe they do not give a damn! But they must be told in clearly unambiguous terms that they have already pushed the people to the wall!
With their back to the wall, the next thing those in authority should expect from the people is the leap of a tiger! It is no longer a question of whether but when! Piling misery upon misery on the people will have consequences!
Karl Marx minced no words in the Communist Manifesto when he called on workers of all countries to unite – that they have nothing to lose but their chains. In no place and at no time is that more apposite today than here in Nigeria!
Bolawole (turnpot@gmail.com 0807 552 5533), former Editor of PUNCH newspapers
