Give it to this President. Regardless of what the opposition, pathological critics, and noisemakers might have said, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is on track. Those who see a glass half empty in his job performance so far have their eyes to blame. Most people see a glass beyond half full. If nothing else, he has treaded where previous Presidents failed to tread, by waffling or dodging altogether. The removal of fuel subsidy; the stoppage of multiple exchange systems; and student loans. True, the results have not fully matured, but needed change is on hand in these areas
They said his cabinet would be “bloated” and that some newly created ministries are superfluous. They said there are too many past state Governors on his cabinet, forgetting that it is his prerogative to choose ministers and that he, too, was a state Governor. If he became President, like seventeen former state Governors, who became Presidents of the United States, why can’t state Governors be appointed Ministers? In any case, he pushed on with his agenda. He inaugurated 45 ministers; there even may be more. And he got the ministers to get to work, by holding the first Federal Executive Council meeting of his administration on Monday, August 21, 2023. It is to the Ministers and their work that I now turn.
The critical questions are: What are they supposed to do? How will they do it? When should they do it? Who evaluates their work and how should it be evaluated? Without a doubt, the answers to these questions revolve around the President.
According to the Presidential spokesperson, Ajuri Ngelale, the President has mandates and benchmarks for the ministers and a timeframe of three years within which to accomplish their tasks. He goes on to emphasise the President’s disciplinary disposition: The President is “ready to fire a minister at the drop of a dime if he is not getting what he wants”.
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However, Ngelale stopped short of telling us how the ministers’ performances will be evaluated relative to the mandate and benchmarks given to them. I am sure the President has a plan. What remains is to share it with the public. Or perhaps he is still perfecting the plan. For now, here is what we know.
In the report submitted to President Tinubu in June, the National Economy Sub-committee of the President’s Policy Advisory Council devoted the last six pages to a key recommendation, namely, the need to establish a Presidential Performance and Delivery Unit (PPDU), anchored on global best practices. They cited several countries in Africa, Europe, Middle East, and Asia, which have similar units to monitor and accelerate implementation of strategic projects.
They rightly identified three core levers as the mandate of such a unit, namely, (1) Problem Solving; (2) Monitoring and Evaluation; and (3) Coordination and Synergy.
In recognition of global best practices, the Performance and Delivery Unit should be headed by someone of Cabinet Minister level, but certainly not one of the serving Ministers and should report directly to the President. This is necessary so we do not have a take-a-bow situation as in Senate confirmations of previous Senators for the post of Minister. However, such a person should also be of equal rank with the Ministers so he could attend cabinet meetings and be respected by the Ministers.
Equipped with the President’s mandate and benchmarks for the various ministers, the PPDU’s performance monitoring and evaluation framework would include a timeline and appropriate key performance indicators to aid an independent policy and programme impact assessment.
Against the double backdrops of repeated failures and a depressed economy, it is necessary to instill discipline in the execution of government projects. That’s why it is necessary for ministers to face severe consequences, if they fail to meet implementation objectives and deliver within agreed timelines. This was the essence of Ngelale’s communication of the President’s position on discipline.
Above all, in order to realise the President’s transparency objectives, the PPDU should produce regular reports to the President at agreed intervals. Even more importantly, the reports should be communicated through various channels and they should be accessible and verifiable by local and international agencies as well as by the media. It is when such information is not available that our non-investigative media resorts to guess work, such as relying on body language. Once we begin to produce regular reports of government projects, without fail, there surely will be improvements in our performances on various international indices.
It is very important for the President to share his vision of the PPDU, by whatever name it is called, and share its membership with the public. As I have written repeatedly, it is now imperative that such a Unit be established immediately or shared with the public if one has been established. This is not the era of the body language of the President. This is the era of clear communication and concrete, verifiable, execution of government policies, programmes, and projects.
This is necessary for a variety of reasons. First, if there was a time in the nation’s history when everyone was anxious for results, this is it. Fortunately, we now have a President as well, who is anxious to achieve. The PPDU is the agent that could monitor achievements for both the President and the people. For example, it is such a Unit that could effectively aggregate data from various states on how the palliative distribution has been going.
Secondly, one of the major reasons for lack of development in our nation is lack of consistent monitoring and evaluation of government projects, which leaves gaps across ministries, departments, and agencies of government. It is the major reason for abandoned projects besides lack of adequate and timely funding.
What I have here is the kind of advisory that could assist this President. Imagine if ten or more journalists picked on the PPDU in the Presidential Policy Advisory Report and urged the President to establish one instead of bashing him day in day out, even on policies on which they previously praised him? After all, this is our country, not Tinubu’s alone. His success is our collective success. Let’s make the Nigerian project our collective project.
