Morning shows the day
Traditional aphorism common to all cultures
With 31 Ministries and 39 Ministers and/or Ministers of State in the outgoing Jonathan Federal Executive Council (FEC), Nigeria has one of the largest Councils of Ministers in the world. Consider the following comparative figures: China, with a population of 1.4 billion, about 20 Ministries; United States, population 320 million, 17 Ministries; Russia, population 142 million, about 22 Ministries; Brazil, population 200 million, 24 Ministries; United Kingdom, population 64 million, about 23 Ministries. Meanwhile, please note that without exception, all of these countries have GDP’s and per capita incomes that dwarf Nigeria’s figures, even with all of our oil wealth. Also, with the exception of only the United Kingdom and Russia, all of these countries have populations that are larger than our own 170 million. Moreover, please note that with every Minister or Minister of State in our country, there is a phalanx of auxiliary staff ranging from highly paid PA’s to low-wage personnel, all maintained at public expense. With all these figures and facts in mind, it becomes pertinent to ask whether a bloated Federal Executive Council has come to stay for good in our governmental system such that when the incoming President after May 29 announces the members of his cabinet we will not be surprised at all if they are as large or even larger than Jonathan’s FEC.
There is a particular historical and ideological dimension to this profile of our bloated and costly federal ministerial system that is worthy of note. Simply put, this is the fact that we have not always had a bloated FEC; more precisely, we have not always felt that we needed a bloated FEC. Anyone over 50 will remember a time in our country when Federal Ministers were less than a dozen. Some might of course argue that 50 years ago, we were far less than 170 million people and did not have as much of the oil wealth that we now have. But that argument does hold up to standards of rigour at all since increase in population and wealth are not the main reasons usually given for the expansion of the FEC in Nigeria. That reason, that logic is, simply, that we must have an FEC that reflects the “federal character” of our country and its government, thus making it mandatory to have at least one representative from each of the 36 states of the federation.
Now, I don’t think that this has the status of a constitutional mandate, but this has not stopped it from being the ultimate weapon against calls for scaling down the size of the FEC. In other words, “a Minister or a Minister of State from every state in the federation”: that is the rationale, the logic of the literal-minded and spurious “federalism” that undergirds Nigeria’s bloated federal ministerial order. Who does not know that even as this piece is being read upon its first publication on Sunday, May 24, 2015, delegations have been going from all corners of the country to Buhari and his Transition Committee to lobby for the appointment of their “sons” or “daughters” to positions in the FEC and other plum federal parastatals?
The big question is this: will Buhari continue this false and wasteful “federalism” of a Minister or Minister of State from every state in the nation? Will his FEC be as big or be even bigger than Jonathan’s? And behind that question is this more revealing question: what does the size of the FEC – whether expanded or reduced – portend for what we may expect from our new ruling party, the APC? Since this will be one of the earliest consequential actions of Buhari as the new President and the APC as the new ruling party, what portents can we discern one way or another if the FEC after May 29 is significantly smaller or bigger than Jonathan’s outgoing FEC of 39 members?
Since our present presidential system of government was very deliberately patterned on the American system, it might be helpful to reflect on the vast disparity between the Americans’ 17 Ministries or Portfolios and our own 31 under Jonathan. [By the way, 31 is not the absolute upper limit for our FEC; that number was exceeded many times during the reign of the PDP from 1999 to 2015] With a landmass much bigger than ours (3.8 million square miles to 356,700 square miles) and a population figure much higher than ours (320 million to 170 million), the Americans make do with only 17 ministerial portfolios. A simple answer to this disparity might be a suggestion that the Americans have a nation whose long historical evolution has placed way beyond the need to reflect its federal character in the number and representativeness of its Federal Ministers or, as they are called, “Secretaries”. But this argument is false and unsatisfactory.
Like us, the Americans also have great expectations that their country’s public institutions should reflect the multiplicity and diversity, the “federal character” if you wish, of their country’s peoples and communities. But they don’t use this need, this compulsion as a means to sacrifice efficiency, public good and perhaps above all else, the creation and accumulation of wealth. Let us be very, very plain speaking about this: in America, any “Secretary” in the Federal Administration who, in one way or another, places wealth creation in jeopardy would not last long in his or her position.
The greatest indictment against the bloated size of the FEC under the reign of the PDP is that its size was inversely related to the negligible quantum of wealth and public good that it produced. All over the world, the mark of the worth of every national executive or ministerial council is the effective delivery of services and the enhancement of public good. Other than rigorously reflecting the “federal character” of the country, Obasanjo’s, Yar’ Adua’s and Jonathan’s FEC’s, with few exceptions, were all remarkable in under-achievement and mediocrity. Wealth was not only not created by them, it was dissipated on a colossal basis. We recall here the portentous words of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, arguably the brightest and most technocratic of the PDP FEC’s, that corruption and mismanagement were so endemic in the government of which she was a member that she would be quite satisfied if by the end of her term in office she had managed to reduce the scope of the waste by a mere 4%. In the years of PDP’s reign, the performance of secondary school leavers at NECO and WAEC exams were abysmal in failure rates; and yet not a single Federal Minister of Education raised an alarm at the precipitous crisis, not to talk of resigning as an honourable act of acceptance of responsibility.
Apart from the received or perceived need to reflect the federal character of the country, in forming his FEC Buhari will be labouring under the immense weight and pressure of rewarding Party faithfuls and benefactors. Hopefully, he will also be looking across the length and breadth of the land for the best brains, the most requisite incarnations of expertise and the most dedicated patriots. The driving logic of this essay is the thought, the wish that Buhari ought to know that he has no obligation whatsoever to have a bloated FEC. As I showed in the beginning section of this piece, there are many nations on this planet with much larger landmasses and much higher populations that do quite well with ministerial councils half the number or size of our own FEC. This is not asking us to do away with the need to reflect the federal character of our country. Rather, it is an argument that there are much better and more productive ways of expressing and consolidating our constitutive federalism. One of these is the equitable distribution of development projects and enterprise zones to all parts of the country. Against the logic of such projects, having an FEC of 39 members or more is a myopic and backward form of “federalism”.
In bringing this piece to a conclusion, I would like to draw the reader’s attention to perhaps the most expressive and visual justification of our seeming need to have bloated FEC’s as a confirmation of the “federal character” of our government. I am sure that everyone reading this essay has seen it many times, perhaps without reflecting too much on it. This is nothing other than the glitzy photo-ops that every meeting of the FEC provides for the gratification of its members and the edification of the whole country and perhaps the world. In these photographs, the sartorial elegance, brilliance and diversity of the country is on display. Flowing, billowing babarigas and agbadas in dark shades of blue and black stage a dalliance with bright, flaming tones of red, yellow and green smocks interlaced with golden or silvery embroideries. We are indeed a people whose cultures of dressing and sartorial display bespeak self-respect, dignity and power. Nothing captures this better than the photo-ops provided by the opening meetings of the FEC. But behind the scenes of splendor are of course the sordid realities of our FEC’s stultifying mediocrity. Buhari has a reputation for simplicity and self-restraint, but I do not know whether he will extend this to a parting of ways with the specular extravagance of the PDP’s FEC meetings. We shall see!
So compatriots, watch out: if Buhari puts in place an FEC swarming with new portfolios and higher numbers, know that this will in no way constitute a definitive and irreversible commentary on his administration; but it will be a portent, an eloquent one at that.
Biodun Jeyifo
bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu
