Mahmud Jega
17 November 2008
column
In the three weeks that Nigerians have been waiting for President Umaru Yar'adua to replace the 22 ministers that he sacked, Time magazine provoked a thought by publishing on its website a list of the Ten Worst Cabinet Members in American History. It quickly set me thinking: who were the Ten Worst Ministers in Nigeria's own shorter but fouler history of cabinet making?
The first nominee on Time's list was A. Mitchell Palmer, who was Attorney General of the United States in 1919-21, under President Woodrow Wilson. The citation for Palmer was, "Charged with enforcing the law, Palmer trampled the Constitution instead. With the Bolshevik Revolution stoking fears over the spread of Communism, Palmer-using the 1917 Espionage Act and 1918 Sedition Act as justification-engineered the mass-arrest of left-wing individuals, dissidents and foreigners. He detained some without charge and deported others. Though Palmer meant to combat Communism, he instead helped usher in the civil liberties movement. The ACLU was formed partly in response to the "Palmer Raids."
Doesn't that sound familiar to Nigerians, using an apparently noble doctrine to subvert an even nobler one? It is not good to mention names here, but there are many Nigerians who are saying that a certain minister in charge of law enforcement has hid under the cover of due process and rule of law to subvert the anti-corruption fight in Nigeria. That is the allegation, anyway.
Time's second nominee for worst American minister was Albert Fall, Secretary of the Interior in 1921-23. His citation was, "Fall was appointed to head the Department of the Interior by his poker buddy President Warren G. Harding. His tenure was a disaster. In 1922, he secretly granted an oil executive the exclusive right to drill on the Teapot Dome reserve in Wyoming. (He made a similar deal at a reserve in California.) As Senate investigations later revealed, his generosity was rewarded to the tune of more than $400,000. Though he retired in 1923, Fall's back-room deal later became a byword for government corruption, and in 1931, the former Interior Secretary left his home by ambulance to serve a one-year prison term- the first cabinet member ever convicted and imprisoned for a major crime committed while in office."
Very good. There are some old timers in Nigeria here who think that old man Fall's deals were nothing compared to what happened in Nigeria in the golden days of import license. It was rumoured then that a Nigerian minister had the very precious import licenses in the pockets of his flowing gown, which he freely distributed at rallies of the ruling party. But unlike Fall, he didn't do any jail time for that.
For number three position, Time nominated Robert McNamara, Secretary for Defense in 1961-68 under Presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. Of him it said, "McNamara was a really smart guy who made some really stupid mistakes. Tapped to be Defense Secretary while he was president of the Ford Motor Co., he was at President Kennedy's side during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He also directed the increasing deployment of U.S. forces to Vietnam, even as he began to harbor doubts about the efficacy of the endeavor. Over the past two decades, McNamara has admitted lying to Congress about the justification for U.S. involvement in the war, and acknowledged that his errant judgment was partly responsible for nearly 60,000 American lives [lost in the Vietnam War]."
It was good at least that McNamara admitted his mistakes, even if they were very costly. In Nigeria here, how many former ministers ever admitted that they made mistakes? They would instead spend the rest of their lives trying to justify what they did, or blaming others for the mess during their tenure.
Time's fourth nominee for worst American minister was Earl Butz, Secretary for Agriculture in 1971-76, under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. His citation was, "The fall of Butz brings to mind a good political rule of thumb: if you're a sitting Cabinet member in the middle of a presidential campaign, it's probably wise not to utter statements within media earshot that are racist, misogynistic and scatological all at once (we'll leave you to look up the exact wording). It wasn't the first gaffe of his tenure; he had previously responded to a question about the Pope in a mock Italian accent and made disparaging comments about women."
In the mid-1970s, when Pope Paul VI issued an Encyclical condemning birth control and family planning, Secretary Butz immediately said the Pope, who was celibate, should not tell married people how many children they should have; "You don't play a da game, so you should not make a da rules!"
Now, in Nigeria here, there was a presidential adviser, later to become minister, who told General Yakubu Gowon to shut up for criticizing someone's third term ambitions since, according to him, Gowon did several tenures as military Head of State for nine years! The man was our local Earl Butz.
Time's fifth nominee was John Mitchell, President Richard Nixon's Attorney General in 1969-72. Of him it said, "After managing Richard Nixon's presidential campaign, Mitchell was appointed head of the Department of Justice. While there, he backed two Supreme Court nominees that were deemed unqualified, approved unconstitutional wiretaps, prosecuted anti-war protesters and was involved in the famed Pentagon Papers suit. In 1974, he was indicted for conspiring to plan the Watergate break-in and for perjuring himself during the ensuing cover-up. Convicted the following year, he served 19 months in prison."
Now, if you are talking about ministers here who tried to overrule the Constitution, perjured themselves or obstructed justice, there isn't enough space on this page to accommodate them.
Time's sixth nominee was James Watt, Secretary of the Interior in 1981-83. It said of him, "The Reagan appointee once infamously bifurcated the American people into "liberals and Americans," [once said a committee was made up of] "a black, a woman, two Jews and a cripple," and seemed to invoke religion as justification for his policies. In a job that requires balancing the protection of natural resources with harnessing the commercial potential of federal land, Watt was viewed by many as favoring development over preservation. Among the acts environmentalists decried: leasing massive tracts of land to coal-mining companies (the amount quintupled during his tenure) and opening up large swaths of the outer continental shelf to offshore oil drillers."
What? If you want to count the Nigerian ministers who toppled over to vested interest and sacrificed the public good in the process, where will you start and where will you stop?
Time's seventh nominee for worst secretary was Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense in 1975-77 and again in 2001-06. Of him it said, "When he was first tapped under President Ford, Rumsfeld was the youngest Secretary of Defense. On his second go-round, he was the oldest. Yet, unlike a fine wine, he didn't improve with age. Before stepping aside in 2006, Rumsfeld bungled wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by failing to commit an adequate number of troops, alienated countless colleagues by failing to heed advice, and presided over a military whose image was indelibly stained by the scandal at Abu Ghraib prison."
Was he the only one? Where are the two Nigerian ministers best known here as "the apostles of SAP," who pauperized and impoverished Nigerians with a half-baked foreign program and did not heed Nigerians' collective advice when it was offered during the IMF loan debate of 1985-86?
Time's eighth nominee was Michael Brown, head of the Federal Emergency Management Authority [FEMA] in 2003-05. Of him it said, "President Bush infamously saluted the one-time FEMA head with a hearty, "Heckuva job, Brownie," but Brown's thin resume (Arabian horses, anyone?) and dismal response to Hurricane Katrina made him a national whipping boy in the storm's aftermath and an icon of an ineffectual administration."
Now, Brown cannot beat the Nigerian ministers who bungled rice imports, green revolution, universal education, national ID card, N300 billion road rehabilitation, $8 billion rail modernization, or even $16 billion power projects.
The tenth nominee was Alberto Gonzales, US Attorney General in 2005-07. "As the nation's chief law-enforcement officer, Gonzales spent more time defending his performance on the job than actually doing it. When called to testify before Congress about his role in the firings of nine U.S. attorneys and the misuse of the NSA's domestic-eavesdropping program, Gonzales attempted to use his own incompetence as a defense, pleading ignorance about the wrongdoing that had occurred under his leadership." In 2007, Gonzales was awarded the "Doublespeak Award" by the National Council of the Teachers of English for saying, "I have in my mind a recollection as to knowing as to some of these United States attorneys. There are two that I do not recall knowing in my mind what I understood to be the reasons for the removal."
That was a much more intelligible phrase, in my opinion, than the Nigerian minister who said in 1988, "Telephones are not for the poor."
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