…Urges Tinubu to be sincere with order
By Rotimi Agboluaje
Professor Gbade Ojo served as Political Adviser to the late former Governor Abiola Ajimobi in the first term and Chief of Staff to the same governor in his second term.
He has served as the Head of Department of the Political Science Department of the University of Ilorin. In this interview with Rotimi Agboluaje, the political science scholar, urges President Bola Tinubu to show sincerity in the implementation of performance marching orders he gave to his appointees. Ojo, who teaches Politics and Comparative Studies at the Unilorin, called on the president and Prof. Tunji Olaopa to revisit the Stephen Oronsaye Report to actualize performance marching orders and bring the much-needed reform at the federal civil service.
At a recent retreat, President Tinubu said the ministers would be evaluated, and those not meeting up would be sent packing. This is novel in the nation’s political ecosystem. Hence, many are of the view that this may precipitate a crisis in the nation’s bureaucracy and politics. What do you have to say about this?
The words of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to his appointees that they’d be regularly assessed to measure their performance and they should perform or be fired isn’t a strange thing. When you make an appointment and the appointees are not conscious that they are being watched or that they can be removed for non-performance, they may be docile in office, and their performance may be underwhelming. But where they know that Mr. President has a mechanism to measure their performance and determine their stay in the government. They’ll sit tight because we voted for Mr. President, not any minister or any appointee.
However, to me as a political scientist, I’d like to look at the sincerity of the president with the statement. It could be a political statement that’ll make Nigerians love him more; it may be a way to buy legitimacy for his government. It’s a fact that there is no room for buck-passing in a presidential system. If the minister didn’t perform, he is the one that appointed the minister. The buck stops on his table. So, he doesn’t need to give the appointees such public warning. Nigerians would rather appreciate a cabinet shake-up on the ground that some of them fail to perform well.
Now that he’s given them public warning, then they’ll try to avoid embarrassment. I can easily recall the Minister for Power, Mr. Adebayo Adelabu equally sounding the same warning to the civil servants under his ministry. He warned them to perform, saying he didn’t want the president to remove him for under-performance. The issue is that ministers are political heads of ministries. A minister may try to be ready to perform, but he may eventually turn out to be a failure if the federal civil servants at the senior cadre don’t cooperate with him. The level of performance of ministers is dependent on the performance of the civil servants. They’ll give the ministers orientations and ideas to do well if they cooperate with him. Then, the minister’ll be seen as a performing one, and Mr. President’ll be pleased with a performing minister.
It’s the first time such marching orders will be given. Some time ago, a former minister in the President Buhari cabinet, Barrister Adebayo Shittu, said Buhari doesn’t care whether he sees you for four years or not. That’s a lackadaisical attitude to administration. That’s what has led Nigeria to where we are today. How could you appoint someone and not care about their performance? That’s why some governors couldn’t embark on cabinet reshuffle or dissolution. That’s why, at the federal level, you couldn’t see any meaningful shake-up. This is due to the fact they’re not being watched, monitored, and evaluated periodically.
I can recollect when I was in government, and the former governor who appointed us asked us to sign resignation letters in advance. We all signed the letter in advance. The governor said if we didn’t perform, he’d just announce that we had resigned. So, for him not to embarrass anyone, he would announce on the radio that this appointee had resigned. It’d be hard to deny because the appointee had already signed the resignation letter. Though it wasn’t made public, we realized that failure is not an option. Those that didn’t perform well weren’t returned in the second term.
Overall, it’s a good warning the president gave them. Whether the warning is political or not, it’s not the business of Nigerians. We’re only interested in seeing the president we voted for to perform by physical evidence of good governance across sectors of the economy. Hence, the issue that the education minister or the power minister didn’t perform doesn’t come in because nobody voted for the ministers. We voted for Tinubu. The truth is that the president has done well with the marching orders, but I want to see his sincerity in action.
It seems this is the first time that Nigerian ministers will be put to task and be monitored. How feasible is the objective of the marching orders?
Public opinion is there. The media, the press can hold them accountable by looking at the policies of the government in various sectors. For instance, on education, aside from the student loan that has not taken off, what are other policies of education that are on the government manifesto? In the Ministry of Works, the minister floats the idea of using concrete to build roads instead of asphalt. We will wait to see whether that’s implementable and cost-effective. But what we know is that land texture determines whether you want to use cement, asphalt, or other materials. The truth is that it is a policy. What are the policies and programmes of other ministries? By now, each ministry ought to have done stakeholders’ meetings to draw up a road map to aid their performance and service delivery. For instance, what is the policy for primary, secondary, and tertiary institutions? In the Second Republic, one could not easily forget the four cardinal points of the defunct UPN {Unity Party of Nigeria}. Against this backdrop, we should be able to know the policies of the government through each ministry. It’s the summation of the performance of each minister that’ll determine the success of the president.
Eight years of Buhari saw no minister sanctioned for not performing. Is this not a way of paling Buhari’s achievements into insignificance?
Don’t forget that former President Jonathan made the same tactical error. When Jonathan appointed ministers, some of his appointees were accused of corruption, but he didn’t care; neither did he bother to investigate them. You cannot imagine the mess with Diezani Alison-Madueke, who was a minister under his watch. I’m not saying she’s corrupt, but if the monitoring mechanism had been put in place, it wouldn’t have been what it is today. There’s another Minister of Aviation, Stella Oduah.
Another one that is still fresh in memory was at the twilight of former President Buhari administration, a few months ago, where then the minister of aviation went to hire aircraft from Ethiopia, repainted it and Buhari went there to commission, claiming that it’s Air Nigeria. How does a country run a national carrier with only one aircraft? That means the ministers were not well monitored for proper accountability and probity.
Would this not set two APC administrations and leaders against each other?
Now, there is a difference between a party and governance. A party is always relevant before elections, but the moment a candidate gets elected, the party needs to step back and allow its flag bearer to implement the cardinal programmes of the party. But it’s quite unfortunate that political parties in Nigeria today don’t have a serious manifesto. There’s a problem of ideological fluidity. It’s hard to differentiate ideological leanings of the Labour Party, the People’s Democratic Party, and the All Progressives Congress. That’s what makes ministers lacklustre in their performance.
Will this step not make Buhari look like a weakling, thereby bringing cleavage between the two APC leaders?
Governance isn’t all about competition. Ordinarily, when you go into government, you perform based on your capability and antecedents. The fact is that Buhari was there for eight years, and his record of performance or under-performance will be on his name. By the same token, Tinubu has his own name, and everybody who has the opportunity to be in government has the desire to make his administration to be a template for good governance. I want to believe that Tinubu may want to demonstrate that he’s an experienced person in government, having been Governor of Lagos State for eight years. He knew how he handled his commissioners back then. He may be replicating the same at the federal level.
So, Tinubu doesn’t need to look back at the Buhari administration, which wasted eight years. Importantly, the incumbent president has to clear the Augean stable. The president is here now. The ball is in his court to make an impact and etch his name on gold.
What do you think should be the criteria and key performance indicators {KPIs} for evaluation and appraisal?
Key performance indicators should be good governance in all ramifications and physical evidence of topnotch performance in key sectors. In agriculture, is there any improvement in food security since he comes on board? In education, is there an increase in enrollment in schools? In the security sector, are Nigerians better secured? Can Nigerians move from Ibadan to Oyo town by 7.00 p.m. without fear? Can they sleep in their rooms with two eyes closed? In the power sector, how many megawatts of electricity are being generated beyond propaganda? In the economy, specifically, in fiscal and monetary angles, has the naira become stronger? You look at the price index. How much was a bag of rice, and how much is it now? How much was a bag of cement by the time his government came and now? It is about the ability to drive the economy to be productive. If you’re producing more, prices will go down. But if supply doesn’t meet demands, prices will be going up.
So, good and impactful governance in all ramifications that’ll lead to poverty reduction and improved welfare of Nigerians should be the key performance indicators.
A lot of experts have identified bureaucracy and red-tapism as the bane of effectiveness of civil service and may stand in the way of the ministers. What is your take on this?
Ordinarily, bureaucracy should not hamper the performance of any good administrator. Naturally, civil servants will be pushing files, making the same comments from one officer to another. The truth is that if the minister gives the bureaucrats an assignment, they must deliver within a time-frame and are aware that if they refuse to deliver within the timeline and there will be consequences, they will work hard to meet the deadline. Civil servants have no option but to do their work, knowing full well that there is a penalty such as transfer to remote areas. The only thing that can slow down an administration is legislative ineffectiveness, where a public policy that requires the parliament to legislate upon is not being attended to expeditiously. That’s the only thing that can result in ineffectiveness. As it stands now, the Tinubu administration of the APC has the majority and the key officers of the National Assembly who are cooperative. Then, there’s no excuse for legislative hindrance and failure.
What happens if there is a budget but there is no financial backup for the ministers to execute the projects?
From my experience in government, I know that budgeting is one thing, while budget performance is a different ball game. A ministry might have budgeted a sum of N100 billion for a project. If there’s no cash backing, there’s nothing the minister can do. With subsidy removal on petrol by this administration, however, the trillion of naira they were spending before has been converted into savings. This means that the government is making more money than double what they were making before. Nigerians should wait to see whether the money’ll really be converted into savings to enhance the value of the naira or repayment of loans or to better the lot of the citizens. Don’t forget that in the eight years of Buhari, a lot of Abacha loot was repatriated to the country. Now, another $150 million has been promised by France to be repatriated. So, we want to see the impact of such money and what such money will do. For instance, if I’m to give the government an idea, $150 million today if that money comes as cash, the government could use the money to build four world-class teaching hospitals and equip them to curb medical tourism. This will reduce the rate of ‘japa’ by medical experts.
What will happen if the Minister of State is a brilliant technocrat, but the senior minister is a demagogue who is after political patronage, leading to the lacklustre performance in the ministry? How would they be appraised?
The whole thing still depends on the president who appointed them. A governor may appoint a commissioner strictly because he’s from a certain constituency. If the governor knows that there may be a problem, he can appoint a Special Adviser that’ll be a technocrat to assist the commissioner who is a politician. The president can use a technocrat to support a core politician; politicians are usually weighed down by sentiments and hypocrisy. A technocrat is not expected to be weighed down by sentiments because his own loyalty is to the president, not necessarily a constituency. He’s not a politician but a Nigerian who should be seen to be doing the right thing. The issue is that ministers should do their best, but a situation whereby political consideration seems to be outweighing reality, it is a problem.
Now, we can admonish them that they should be conscious of the federal character principle and shun clannishness.
What will be your advice to Prof. Tunji Olaopa, who will be sitting atop the nation’s bureaucracy as the Chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission?
Prof . Tunji Olaopa is a well-known technocrat and scholar wearing two caps. He’s an experienced administrator, having served in the federal civil service and retired. So, he must have known the federal civil inside out. The chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission is a big shot who superintends over recruitments and promotion of federal civil servants.
The new chairman is a prolific writer; all those things should count in terms of performance. In Africa, it’s amusing that people could be vast writers and social critics, but when they come to public office, their term may be replete with excuses. So, I want to say that the case of Olaopa will be quite different. Again, Prof. Olaopa must revisit the Stephen Oronsaye Report to reform the federal civil service for optimum performance.
What is your advice to President Tinubu in this onerous task of recalibrating the system? How can he achieve resounding success?
The president should be conscious of the federal character principle. He should change the narrative of being perceived as Yoruba President. Tinubu has been elected by Nigerians, including states and local governments, that didn’t vote for him. The whole country is his constituency, and he must serve everybody.
I want the president to ensure that things are done properly to engender good governance. He can diversify the economy by looking into critical sectors and take drastic steps quickly in order to curb the scandalous rate of unemployment. Nigerians are gradually becoming impatient with the hunger in town.
Also, education is pivotal; no country can develop without a robust education sector. Unfortunately, for now, our education sector is nothing to write home about – lecturers are still owed salaries of eight, professors are grossly underpaid, and the motivation is underwhelming.
End