The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to reshuffle his cabinet and relieve some ministers who under-performed of their duties.
Speaking with The Nation on the expectation of Labour from the President Buhari, NLC President Comrade Ayuba Wabba said Buhari should reshuffle his cabinet because many ministers had not performed to expectation.
Wabba said there were high expectations from Nigerians, when the President returned from his medical vacation.
The expectations, according to him, range from the need to rejuvenate the economy, address the issues of security and insurgency, kidnapping, corruption, hunger, minimum wage and the constitution of the boards of many agencies.
Specifically, he pointed out that it was high time for Buhari to assess the performance of his ministers and other political appointees, adding that there is the need to inject new and fresh ideas.
“There is high expectation in how to rejuvenate the machinery of government, especially looking at the performance of the ministers and some political appointees. I think, usually in the life of any administration, halfway down the line will be a enough time to assess their performance and then assess the impact that they put into the system.
“Most Nigerians expect that there is the need to add impetus to governance and looking at key sectors and ministries, there are few that have done well, but many have not done well. So, there is expectation that the cabinet be reshuffle and be able to inject new ideas.”
“Two years down the line of any administration is enough to do a kind of assessment, and looking at a very genuine assessment, there is still much to do, to get to the promise land.
“Even in the fight against corruption, you can see that a lot of cases have been thrown up, but I think none of them has been concluded. There is the need for those cases to be completed, get conviction and declare how much was recovered and then, those recoveries can be put into the system to make tangible impacts.
“So, those are clearly some of the high expectations of Nigerians as well as organised labour and the workers. In this circumstance, President Buhari will have more than enough at his hands to be able to drive the process of governance.”
On security, he said “There are needs for some steps to be taken. This is because progress was made, but it can be reverted if they are not sustained. So, there is the need to sustain some of those interventions, especially around the Northeast.
“The insurgency has actually come up with new strategies and tactics which has made the Acting President to direct the Service Chiefs to move their offices to the Northeast. So, I think this also is an area that we do not expect the reversal of the gains that has been made, everything need to be done to sustain the momentum, to ensure that we are able to clear all the remnants of the insurgency because without peace, there cannot be development anywhere around the world.’’
He added: “We also heard of new elements like kidnapping in some states, this is very strange to us, this is new, but also this clearly are signals that there are challenges in accommodating our youths and the issue of employment is very important.”
