With a party in almost total disarray at the leadership level, where exactly does the APC expect to draw its support from come 2019?
Roared the public announcement from the Federal Ministry of Education, April 22, 2017:, ‘President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the reconstitution of the boards of 19 agencies and parastatals under the Federal Ministry of Education for a period of four years. In doing this, continued the announcement by Mrs Chinenye Ihuoma of the ministry, the President took into cognizance provisions of the respective legislation with respect to composition, competence, credibility, integrity, federal character and geo-political spread”. Of course, as has become usual with this administration, the second part of that statement is not true. Miffed with himself as much as the columnist is writing this, facts are facts and they are sacred. The same motive that could make Biodun Jeyifo, a professor and colleague columnist on this newspaper who has been very supportive of the president’s anti-corruption programme, railing ceaselessly at some senior lawyers trying to hamstrung it write as quoted below, is what inspires some of the things you would be reading in this piece. Wrote Jeyifo in his column of Sunday, August 27, 2017: “I suggest that what we are witnessing is the fact that with the coming to power of Muhammadu Buhari as President and the APC as the new ruling political party at the centre, all the lies, all the deceits and all the delusions of our political elites in all the ruling class political parties proffering themselves as the champions and standard bearers of our country’s unity and corporate existence have been exposed in a way that had hitherto had been impossible.” He wrote further: “On the personal level, without descending into insult and calumny, I cannot but say with all the emphasis that I can muster that Buhari has turned out to be one of the most parochial, sectionalist and nepotistic rulers we have ever had in this country. This is a man who enjoyed – and probably still enjoys – respect and even sedulous followership all over the country, well beyond his own regional and local neck of the woods. But now, it is an understatement to say that his blatant and even arrogant sectionalism has caused a deep crisis of credibility.”
For this article, I am expecting a rather well-deserved roasting in the social media. Even though I have severally criticised the president for his very insensitive appointments, especially the in-explainable architecture of the country’s security apparatti which has guaranteed that murderous Fulani herdsmen have roamed , uncensored, on their killing forays into other peoples’ lands, and not forgetting my criticising him for narrowing key and very sensitive appointments to Hausa/Fulani and Kanuris, my traducers will, very conveniently, forget all that but remember, without fail, the ringing support I have always given the government in the sure belief that President Buhari is an unmatchable, incorruptible patriot. And please, don’t go telling me his appointments corrupt the system as I am zero-ing in here on a comparison between him and the Presidents we had during the massive looting of our common patrimony during the PDP’s 16-year stranglehold.
They are, of course, incomparable.
What therefore rankles the most about the constitution of boards of agencies and parastatals under the ministry of education is not only that the ministry, under a minister of northern extraction, could gloat uproariously about being sensitive to federal character in the appointments even with 15 out of the 21 Chairmen in the colleges of education, 10 out of 25 in the Polytechnics and 12 out of the 19 in the mostly regulatory agencies and para-statals under the ministry all going to the north, is that six months after that announcement, nothing has changed as none of the supposedly brand new boards has been inaugurated. And let nobody ascribe this to President Buhari’s indisposition as examples are legion, even on You tube, of ministers inaugurating boards of their respective ministries.
I do not see any of these appointments as doing anybody a favour since the boards and councils are meant to guide and assist the administration of these various institutions by putting in place policies and ensuring their compliance in running the institutions since, as we recently saw in the case of the National Health Insurance Scheme, many are they, who believe they can run them like their fiefdom.
As in the case of the ‘lost and found’ Universities (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Amendment) Act 2003, otherwise called the Universities Autonomy Act, which was ferreted out by ASUU and Femi Falana SAN, when the Education Minister was performing some abracadabra within the universities, I am sure there is also a document setting out the constitution and functions of these various organisations which, by failing to inaugurate the boards, the minister has, curiously, put in limbo for six months. Without a doubt, and as is usual with Nigerians, the respective heads of these organisations must have been acting like sole administrators, though all reporting to the all powerful minister.
How can officials of state be this arrogantly disrespectful of not only persons, but institutions of state too?
But it is not only disrespect that is motivating this; rather, it is crass opportunism being used to disguise ethnicity. As you read this, literally all the executives running the core agencies in the ministry, like TETFUND and UBEC, are under the headship of northerners whilst southerners are consigned to those agencies which require real hard work like the National Library of Nigeria and others in that category. It is obviously in order not to upset the apple cart that Adamu Adamu, who is being assisted as minister of education, by a highly experienced professor from the south, is not keen about inaugurating the boards. It is beyond him to realise that most of these appointees, especially those from the south, are reputable and very busy people who, put in the lurch in this highly arrogant manner, are stopped from properly planning their schedules and itinerary. This becomes more ingratiating when you realise that these people were appointed either for their competences and past service to the country, like Professor Bayo Banjo, or for their expertise and contribution to the Buhari victory which some people now see solely as theirs.
I am also reliably informed that this is not limited to the ministry of education because as you read this, I am told that not all the boards of Nigeria’s 12 River Basin Development Authorities have been inaugurated. One can only hope this is not true. The question then is this, if constituted boards are not inaugurated, six months after, how can this government even remember that more than two years of assuming office, the president is yet to constitute the boards of most of the government’s enterprises? Is it too much to expect that high ranking party members, who gave of their best to ensure that Buhari smelt victory the fourth time trying, are given appointments in appreciation? With a party in almost total disarray at the leadership level, where exactly does the APC expect to draw its support from come 2019? Incidentally, not even the president can claim that this is a cost saving device because, apart from the ministry of information, appointees of former President Goodluck Jonathan are allegedly sitting spat at their posts and how APC expects them to shift their loyalty is beyond me.
This situation is worse off in states where the APC is in opposition and many uninformed people, believing their local political leaders have been compensated by their party still approach these unappreciated politicians, asking for one favour or the other.
I am at a loss as to how the APC intends to counter the rampaging PDP which is today leaving nothing to chance with its interim chairman, Senator Makarfi, personally leading an aggressive reconciliation campaign. At a personal level, as readers of this column know only too well, I have done my utmost to de-market the PDP, drawing Nigerians’ attention – since we have short memories – to how rapaciously the party ruined Nigeria in those 16 years of the locust. But what is this government’s unique selling point to a people who continue to say they have seen no change while APC itself remains uninterested in winning back, and equipping its loyalists and supporters, to mount an aggressive Risorgimento, imbued with a new determination to win back the love that propelled Buhari to victory?
And one can only hope it is not getting too late.
