President Jonathan and the ‘Election Cabinet’

IN THE ARENA

Ahead of 2015, politics, rather than performance, seems to form the basis for the composition of Jonathan’s cabinet, but the social and economic risks associated with this drift are enormous. Vincent Obia writes

President Goodluck Jonathan, in a surprise move Wednesday, sacked nine of his 43 ministers. He offered no straight talk on why he thought the ministers should go. But the timing and choice of the officials fit a trend against perceived opponents of Jonathan’s second term ambition, which he is yet to announce.

Most of the dismissed ministers either come from states whose governors have been involved in a battle of wits with the president or are nominees of perceived opponents of the president. They are Professor Ruqayyatu Rufai (Education), Hadiza Mailafia (Environment), Shamsudeen Usman (National Planning), Ama  Pepple (Housing, Lands and Urban Development), and Zainab Kuchi (Minister of State for Power).

Others are Okon Ewa-Bassey (Science and Technology), Olugbenga Ashiru (Foreign Affairs), Olusola Obada (Minister of State for Defence), and Bukar Tijani (Minister of State for Agriculture).

Even though not formally recorded in the laws of the country, it is generally becoming a tradition that ministers are mostly nominated by the governors of their states of origin. Some governors have been engaged in political confrontations with the president, which boiled over at the August 31 special national convention of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party. The situation culminated in the formation of a splinter group, called New PDP, by some chieftains of PDP, including former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, former acting PDP National Chairman Abubakar Baraje, Kano State Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso, Kwara State Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed, Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi, Niger State Governor Bamangida Aliyu, Sokoto State Governor Aliyu Wamakko, Jigawa State Governor Sule Lamido, and Adamawa State Governor Murtala Nyako. 
   
Among those sacked, Rufai hails from Jigawa State and Pepple is from Rivers State, and both are said to have been nominated by Lamido and Amaechi, respectively.

Kuchi is from Niger State. Usman is from Kano State. Even though he was among the ministers Jonathan inherited from the administration of the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, Usman is believed to have a close relationship with Kwankwaso.

Ashiru, from Ogun Sate, was said to have been nominated by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, one of Jonathan’s main backers in 2011 who has, however, fallen out with him on account of Obasanjo’s alleged indisposition to Jonathan’s second term.

Though former Osun State Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola might not have nominated Obada for the ministerial job, but the former Minister of State, Defence is known to be close to Oyinlola whom she worked under as deputy governor of Osun for seven years. Oyinlola is at present National Secretary of the Baraje-led New PDP.

No concrete reason was given for the dismissals. Minister of Information Labaran Maku, who disclosed the sack of the ministers to State House correspondents after Wednesday’s Federal Executive Council meeting, merely said, “It’s part of a systematic public administration and I believe that what the president has done is simply to address the issues of retuning his government to achieve service delivery. And it is at the discretion of the president at all times to reshuffle his cabinet. It is part of his prerogative under the constitution.”

Such weak account also followed the sack of Inuwa Abdulkadir, an indigene of Sokoto State, as Minister of Youth Development on August 26. Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, said a day later that Abdulkadir got the sack for failing to give quality leadership to the National Youth Council of Nigeria, in what seemed as an afterthought.
In the absence of any solid reason for the dismissals, the logical speculation among Nigerians seems to be that the 2015 election politics has become so dirty and bitter that the president is prepared to sacrifice any person, or make anyone take the punishment for the perceived sins of some political enemies.

The ultimate purpose of the present personnel changes, many believe, is to weed out persons seen as incapable of delivering the votes for Jonathan’s second term, however good they may be at their jobs, to make room for politically trusted individuals. It is believed that the latter would also act as the president’s foot soldiers, particularly, in states where the governors are thought not to be on the same page with him on the 2015 presidency.

Jonathan appears intent on doing in states governed by his perceived opponents what former President Shehu Shagari did in the Second Republic, when he appointed the so-called “Federal Liaison Officers” as his “special assistants” in the states. The FLOs were in effect purposed to be opposing forces on the governments of states controlled by the opposition parties.

But while the Shagari-era “special assistants” did not hold ministerial portfolios, Jonathan seems set to compose an “election cabinet” peopled by individuals whose job descriptions would emphasise politics above performance. This makes the current situation more deleterious to the polity.

The performance contract, which the president signed in August last year with ministers and other strategic officials, appears to be the rating net specially tailored to catch the unwanted ministers in the run-up to 2015. With the recent happenings, Jonathan’s explanation at the time that the contract was “not a witch-hunt targeted at anybody,” certainly, won’t persuade many Nigerians.

This is more so as the president has quite openly negated his own professed aversion for the elevation of politics above performance among officials of his government. The president who had warned during the inauguration of the board of the Niger Delta Development Commission on November 29, 2011 in Abuja, that he “will be very angry with you” if he heard that any of the board members angled for political patronage while still serving, is today habouring ministers who seem more devoted to political ambitions than ministerial responsibilities.  

On the road to 2015, many Nigerians fear that there is a determined effort to saddle the country with a cabinet that is long on politics but short on performance. What the country needs now is leadership that brings transformation, not politics that pursues that course of personal aggrandisement.