President Bola Tinubu apportioned portfolios to members of his cabinet last week, and his choices have obviously led to a lot of punditry. Some claim that the cabinet is lacklustre. Others say they are round pegs in square holes. No matter what the president did, there was sure to have been a lot of debate for and against his decision.
Anytime there is an action that involves selection, there is also a counter-action that involves rejection. For example, if you select people to be ministers, it would invariably mean that you reject others for that position. And when you apportion portfolios to them, some will be chosen to man what has come to be known as first-class ministries, such as finance, petroleum, defence, transport, aviation, and foreign affairs, which implies that those who did not get such juicy ministries were rejected.
It is in the light of this that Nigerians ought to take some of the criticism of first the choice of ministers and then their choices of portfolios.
A minister is not a specialist. A minister is an administrator. That is why each ministry has a permanent secretary, who is a specialist, as the civil service head of that ministry. And in the hierarchy, there are directors, heads of departments and senior civil servants, who are micromanagers of specific niches within that ministry.
The job of a minister is to give direction. In other words, to lead. The position of the civil servants is to garner the skill and management required to move in the direction they have been led by their minister.
You do not even need to be a doctor to be the health minister. The only ministry that constitutionally requires specialisation is the ministry of justice. And if that ministry is not tied to the office of the attorney general, then even that specialisation will not be necessary.
For example, the UK's health minister is the Rt Hon Steve Barclay (MP). The fellow is a lawyer and former soldier. However, he has built a reputation in the health ministry as an effective administrator par excellence, who has prevented the UK from seeing a resurgence in the new strain of COVID-19 and meeting his targets to reduce the cost and waiting time for cancer patients, and addressing funding issues in the NHS.
In the United States, their health minister is Xavier Becerra, who is also a lawyer and career politician who served as attorney general of California. Mr Becerra handled the US mpox outbreak and contained it.
So, we must understand the difference between leadership and management. Aliko Dangote leads the Dangote Group, and he has built the world's largest single-train refinery in Lagos. However, he is not managing that facility because he does not have the expertise to do so. He has thus hired people with the requisite expertise to manage that aspect of his business and report to him.
Otunba Mike Adenuga is perhaps Nigeria's most brilliant industrialist. However, it is his leadership that has brought him thus far. He is one of Africa's leading, if not the continent's top telecommunications mogul. But he does not need to understand how a submarine cable makes the Glo network one of Africa's best. He has managers who understand that and report to him.
A leader that is bogged down with micromanagement cannot be effective. That is why Buhari failed. Because he left his job of leadership to be chasing small fry who stole $25,000, instead of delegating that to Bawa, without 'snoopervising' him.
If you look at the naira, it was most stable between 1975 and 1979 when it traded at 64 kobo to $1. And for two of those years, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria was Adamu Ciroma, a journalist who read history. Ciroma was a leader. He led a CBN board of directors and committee of governors that had people with the technical skills to move in the direction he wanted to go.
So, when people complain that a ministry, like defence, needs a former military person as minister in order for that agency of the federal government to be effective, I would respectfully disagree based on factual evidence.
We had a former military general and head of state as president and a retired general as minister of defence under Buhari, and our security worsened. The definition of insanity is to keep doing the same things and expect different results.
If Buhari and Bashir Magashi only worsened the situation, then perhaps it is right to change them.
If you look at the Global Terrorism Index for 2023, the countries experiencing the most insecurity are nations governed by the military, including Burkina Faso (#2) and Mali (#4).
Niger was making progress on the Global Terrorism Index until the military took over, and two days ago, jihadists killed 14 Nigerien soldiers.
If you look at our history, we have had more security when civilians headed the defence ministry than when soldiers or ex-soldiers held that office. The Niger Delta militancy began under TY Danjuma, an ex-general, as minister of defence and ended when a civilian, Yayale Ahmed, took over. The Boko Haram insurgency started when a former general, Godwin Abbe, was defence minister and is only now easing under Nuhu Ribadu as the national security adviser.
If you take Mohammed Badaru, the new defence minister, he was governor of Jigawa. Jigawa is one of the states that handles terrorism and insecurity well. How did he do it? Maybe he can replicate it at his new ministry.
Let these ex-military guys give others a chance, and then we can compare and contrast, because the military is trained to carry out specific orders and tasks given to them by civilian authorities. That is why they are instructed not to question orders but to implement them without dispute and deviation.
This makes it very difficult for them to be flexible enough to understand the non-combat aspect of securing a nation. And there is a simple explanation for this. You see, when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. And when all you have is a gun, you shoot to kill, rather than speak to chill.
However, civilian administrators undergo rigorous debates, consultations and discussions and get feedback from those they administer without intimidating them. So, they will likely be better at giving our military the proper orders and parameters so that the armed forces can focus on their core duties.
The point of civilian control of the military is to ensure that our armed forces are subjugated to the nation and our constitution instead of vice versa.
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So, please, let's put things into proper perspective.
My Take on General Tchiani's Pledge
The so-called promise by the coup leader, General Tchiani, to hand over to civilians in three years is worthless. It is not even worth the value of the paper from which he read it. The man is just looking for relief from the ECOWAS, and if ECOWAS leaders give in, he will consolidate himself until another strongman removes him. Didn't Abacha promise that his administration would be "brief"? Power corrupts, and absolute power, such as the type currently being wielded by Tchiani, corrupts absolutely.
ECOWAS should continue with the squeeze in Niger. Why do they still have GSM and Internet data? They depend on the French-based Eutelsat. Shut it down. Shut them out of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications.
Nobody should be rattled by Wagner forces in Niger. Wagner are merciless mercenaries. They fight for money. Without money, their appetite for Niger will soon dim. And Russia is not in a position to financially support Niger for a sustained period. It has its domestic issues to contend with.
Consign Tchiani back to the Stone Age, and his own soldiers and people will eventually turn against him, and the general will be forced to flee to either Russia or their client states like Mali or Burkina Faso.
If General Tchiani is allowed to trick ECOWAS and get them to accept his Taqiyya promise, the domino effect of coup will reach other West African nations. This is beyond Niger. Make Tchiani a scapegoat!
