[Mhiz Rebecca]

With reports from multiple sources confirming that
an impending shake-up in President Muhammadu
Buhari’s cabinet, there has been tension among the
ministers as to what there fates may be at the end
of the exercise.
Daily Trust on Sunday learnt that since the president
returned from his recent medical vacation in the
United Kingdom which spanned over 100 days, he
and his deputy, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, have been
“rubbing minds” on a possible cabinet reshuffle.
“Mr President and Mr Vice President have met
several times over a cabinet reshuffle. This started
when Mr Vice President paid an emergency visit to
Mr President in London sometime in July. They are
still discussing the issue. Mr President has sought to
know how the ministers fared when he was away in
London,” a source said.
The impending reshuffling was believed to have
caused delay in the deployment of two new
ministers, Stephen Ocheni (State for Labour and
Employment) and Sulaiman Hassan (State for Power,
Works and Housing). It took Osinbajo, who was then
acting as president, three weeks before announcing
their portfolios.
“You would recall that when Professor Yemi Osinbajo
was acting as president, he did not immediately
swear in the two new ministers. And when he
eventually did, he could not give them portfolios until
few weeks after. The agreement was that the vice
president should only inaugurate them and wait for
the president to reshuffle the cabinet. This is likely
to happen soon, now that the president has fully
resumed official duties,” said a source.
To many observers of events in the presidency, the
reshuffle is not coming as a surprise with the cabinet
being perceived as largely failing to excite Nigerians
with their performance over the last two years.
It would be recalled that President Buhari took four
months after his inauguration to constitute a cabinet,
raising expectations that he is keen on getting people
who would transform the country in a short period.
In the four months it took the president to announce
his cabinet, from May 29, 2015 when he was sworn
into office and Septemer 30, when the minestarial list
was finally submitted to the National Assembly, there
were serious concerns in the country over the slow
movement of the president.
Apart from naming one protocol official, Lawal
Kazaure (State Chief of Protocol and three media
aides: Femi Adesina (Special Adviser, Media and
Publicity), Garba Shehu (Senior Special Assistant,
Media and Publicity), and Laolu Akande (Senior
Special Assistant, Media and Publicity, to Vice
President Yemi Osinbajo), Buhari didn’t make any
other key appointment.
His delay in filling important government positions,
especially the office of the Secretary to the
Government of the Federation, was considered by
critics as capable of hurting the smooth running of
government businesses, especially the day to day
operations of the different ministries, departments
and agencies (MDAs).
Yet the president would not be rushed and his
response to agitations over the delay then was that
he was bidding his time to avoid making mistakes.
“Fellow Nigerians, there has been a lot of anxiety
and impatience over the apparent delay in
announcement of ministers. There is no cause to be
anxious. Our government set out to do things
methodically and properly. We received the handing
over notes from the outgoing government only four
days before taking over,” the president had said.
“Consequently, the Joda Transition Committee
submitted its report on the re-organisation of Federal
Government structure after studying the hand over
notes. It would have been haphazard to announce
ministers when the government had not finalized the
number of ministries to optimally carry the burden of
governance.
Maintaining that ‘impatience is not a virtue’, Buhari
said, “Order is more vital than speed. Careful and
deliberate decisions after consultations get far better
results. And a better result for our country is what
the APC government for change is all about.”
His spokesman, Femi Adesina had insisted then that
the absence of ministers did not affect the smooth
running of government affairs.
“Business need not be grounded at MDAs because
the permanent Secretaries and other technocrats are
in place to take decisions,” Adesina had said, adding:
“It is the prerogative of the President to make the
appointments. He will make them (appointments) at
the fullness of time.”
In those months of anxious waiting, amidst the
president’s insistence that he would only appoint
credible people, untainted by the pandemic of
corruption that has crippled the country’s growth,
the myth of “Buhari’s angels” was born, with
observers expecting a radical list of ministers that
would shake up the country in a short while.
President Buhari reportedly said then that the need
to restructure the Federal Government ministries and
to effect his party’s mantra of change in government
processes and operations accounted for why he did
not send names of ministerial nominees to the
senate much earlier.
But two years on, no one is surprised by news of a
reshuffle, which has been circulating for months,
even before the president travelled to London for
treatment.
An economic analyst and columnist, Mr. Tope Fasua
thinks this administration needs to revive itself with
a new cabinet.
It’s certainly past time for the Buhari government to
rejig its lineup. Any system should be subjected to
reorganisation even when times are good. In this
instance, we got a few things wrong ab initio.
Nigerians have been expecting a reshuffle. It will be
great for Baba to pump in new blood in the hope that
he can finish the remaining two years with a flourish.
I wish him good luck,” he said.
“A cabinet reshuffle is a very high possibility. Don’t
be surprised if it happens soon. The president is
disposed to effecting a major change in his cabinet.
Some members of the cabinet will have their
portfolios swapped, and if need be, some could be
dropped,” another source said.
This certainty has caused anxiety amongst the
ministers, with one of them stating that, “We always
discuss this (cabinet reshuffle). We know it is going
to happen. So, we won’t be surprised if it happens.
The problem is that only the president knows the
criteria he is going to use, and this is our fear. No
one knows who will be affected,” the minister,
speaking anonymously, said.
Already, the ruling All Progressives Congress is
positioning itself to make significant input in the new
cabinet, having felt that it was sidelined by the
president when he constituted his cabinet in 2015.
However, the presidency is keeping its cards close to
its chest as regards the planned reshuffle, with the
president’s spokesperson, Femi Adesina, when
contacted, refusing to confirm the move. He did not,
however, rule out a reshuffle.
“The president assembled his cabinet. He is the only
one who can assess them and he is the only one to
decide if and when he will reshuffle the cabinet,”
Adesina said.
Mr. Adesina’s perspective however contradicts
sharply what the president had said on the first
anniversary of his inauguration when he said he was
relying on the verdict of Nigerians to determine if
there was a need to rejig the cabinet.
“I am waiting for the newspapers to tell me the
performance of my ministers and whether I should
make changes,” the president had said at the time.
With the country slumping into recession shortly
after the administration took over in 2015, the policy
statements from the cabinet have been baffling and
inconsistent at most, with most analyst believing the
ministers are slow to push through policy directives.
The first prominent critic of the president’s
appointment was no other than his wife, Aisha
Buhari, who in an October 2016 interview with the
BBC, said.
“Not only me in person, because after receiving
complaints upon complaints, I decided to tell him”.
“But all the same, a lot of people have been coming
on their own and also collectively to tell him that
things are not going the way it should when it comes
to putting people in certain positions.
“Because most of those that are occupying positions
in agencies, nobody knows them and they
themselves don’t know our party manifesto, what we
campaigned for. They were not part of us
completely. People were sitting down in their houses,
folding their arms only for them to be called to come
and head an agency or take a ministerial position.
They don’t have a mission or vision of our APC…”
Her frustrations were echoed by the Chairman of the
Progressive Governors’ Forum and Imo State
Governor, Rochas Okorocha in October last year
when he urged President Buhari to heed the advice
of his wife, Aisha, and other Nigerians to rejig his
cabinet.
Okorocha who spoke to State House
correspondents’ days after returning with Buhari
from Germany, said there was need to bring in
people who would help actualize the vision of the All
Progressives Congress (APC) for Nigeria.
“Quite frankly, I am a governor and I know where the
shoe pinches most. It is like somebody in the game
and those who are outside seem to see more. So it’s
natural. I think for any reason, if there is a clarion call
on Mr. President to look into his cabinet and bring in
more people, there is nothing wrong in taking note of
the comments from Nigerians.
“If everyone keeps saying the same thing, there
must be a sense in what they are saying. But that is
not really the situation that should create a big
hullabaloo like this big thing we are all attaching to
it,” Okorocha reportedly said.
With Buhari’s return on August 19, there have been
renewed calls on him to rejig his cabinet. The
National Association of Nigerian Students had
expressed delight over the return of the president
but urged him to reposition his cabinet.
NANS’ President, Chinonso Obasi, had in a statement
said: “We urge the president to use the opportunity
of his return to quickly introduce a new sense of
vigour into his administration by re-positioning his
cabinet for effectiveness and efficiency. There is
need to bring on board, cerebral, competent, vibrant,
contemporary and dynamic young people to
stimulate the administration and revive the ailing
economy,” he said.
While the President is said to be disposed to shaking
up his cabinet, a presidency source confided in Daily
Trust on Sunday that Buhari may be applying his
characteristic ‘methodical’ approach in carrying out
his cabinet reshuffle.
The source who said that his ministers, who are all
aware of the likely changes to take place, have been
lobbying Buhari through their governors or close
allies of the president, to either retain their ministries
or be moved to other ministries said: “The President
may be applying his methodical principle of taking
time before he does things.”
It was also gathered that another major reason the
anticipated cabinet reshuffle by the President may
take some time is because the National Assembly
which has the statutory responsibility of screening
and confirming his ministerial nominees is currently
on a recess that would last for eight weeks.
Senators and members of the House of
Representatives embarked on eight weeks annual
recess to reconvene on September 19.
Senate President Bukola Saraki announced the
recess at the end of plenary session last week.
There were reports that when Vice-President Yemi
Osinbajo visited the president last month in the
United Kingdom, he had sought Buhari’s permission
to reshuffle the cabinet and also presented Buhari
with a draft list of ministers for his consideration and
approval.
The president was said to have asked his deputy to
tarry a while until he returned to the country,
informing Osinbajo that since the administration was
midway into its tenure, it would be the only
opportunity for him (Buhari) to reshuffle the cabinet.
Upon his return to the country, Osinbajo swore-in
Prof. Stephen Ocheni from Kogi State and Alhaji
Suleiman Hassan from Gombe State, who had been
confirmed by the Senate as ministerial nominees,
without assigning any portfolios to them. They were
eventually assigned portfolios three days before
Buhari’s return from the UK.
Two years into the president’s four-year term, the
country is yet again gripped the anxiety of forming a
new cabinet. The long wait might come to an end
soon.