However, one can hardly blame these young men who have most probably never functioned in any properly structured organisations.
Kayode Samuel, a former Ogun State Commissioner for Information, unarguably one of Nigeria’s most intellectually engaging individuals on social media, and certainly not your most enthusiastic Buhari supporter, recently commented as follows on Face book: “If the President indulges any Minister or aide by personally attending to them and their requests, they should know that that is a privilege. The correct protocol is that you go through his Chief of Staff. Not because the president thinks you’re not important but because the Chief of Staff is the one saddled with the responsibility for organising his diary, schedule and itinerary, and always ensuring presidential recall of actionable items.
If you just want to chit chat with the president, you may insist on seeing him. But if you really wish that action be taken on any matter that you bring to his attention, you are better advised to go through his Chief of Staff. Really as simple as that. Self-important ministers who have any issues with this arrangement know what to do!”
I reacted as follows:”It’s a great job you did here Kay but I don’t think you realise it. With this your short write up, by which I know you actually intend to address some ministers who consider themselves special, you have shut up the many who would soon have been telling Nigerians, pejoratively of course, that ministers cannot see Buhari unless they go through Kyari, his Fulani brother.
So thank you for a good job”.
God knows that when I wrote that, I had in mind only those intellectually deficient yokels, e- rats etc, who revel in ethnic profiling, no matter what it is President Buhari does or did not do. But how mistaken that has turned out to be as a coterie of busy bodies, and individuals, have jumped at what any logical person or group should have seen only as Mr. Samuel saw it, a procedural issue.
But no, they would be lacking in what has since become their article of faith- irrationally criticising government for the sake of criticising – if they hadn’t trashed the president, calling him names, as usual.
Now what is the casus belli? What caused their angst?
Buhari’s sin was nothing more than declaring as follows at the inauguration of the new Federal Executive Council on Wednesday, 21 August, 2019: “As I said yesterday (Tuesday), in terms of coordinating communication, kindly ensure that all submissions for my attention or meeting requests be channelled through the Chief of Staff while all Federal Executive Council matters be coordinated through the Secretary to the Government of the Federation in order to speed up the process of decision-making.”
One would have thought that this plea was straightforward enough and if we were to contextually analyse, and correlate it with Samuel’s position, one can only logically come away with the following: That:
- a) the president would only have been extending a privilege, which he is not obliged to, if he personally attends to any minister’s request, brought directly to him, as that would be patently against protocol;
- b) the Chief of Staff is the one saddled with the responsibility for organising his diary, schedule and itinerary, and always ensuring his recall of actionable items;
- c) it is no sign of disrespect to the minister but a guarantee that the minister would have action taken on whatever matter he/she brought to the president’s attention.
Indeed, as if repeating the obvious, the president emphasised that this was for purposes of co-ordination.
But hardly had he finished speaking than they launched their vitriol with the now, understandably, distraught PDP in the lead. Or what with the ‘death’ of their server at the Supreme Court only a few days earlier?
Declared its Publicity Secretary, Mr Kola Ologbondiyan, in his forever inelegant language: “By that directive, he (the president) has reduced the ministers to the clerical aides to the Chief of Staff and because of that even him, Mr. President, has abdicated his responsibilities and assigned it to his Chief of Staff. The directive also suggests that Mr. President as the Minister of Petroleum Resources will also go through the Chief of Staff on policy matters (how logical?). He has abdicated his responsibility and ceded it to his Chief of Staff.” He concluded by saying that such demotion of ministers was “unacceptable and counter-productive, having reduced governance to a domestic affair”.
That intervention reminded me of once writing about him as follows: “None of them will, however, hold the candle to their spokesperson, Kola Ologbondiyan, who has this incredible felicity with lying that I could not have been happier than when I read Emeritus Professor Jide Osuntokun on this aspiring Goebbels this past week. He wrote: “The wild exaggerations of government misdeeds coming particularly from the PDP’s spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, should be stopped. It is obvious to intelligent people that his claims of looting of trillions by people in the present government are mere juvenile vituperations lacking in merit. Targeting the vice president and tarring him with the brush of corruption is mere politics without fact. Those of us who know the vice president just laugh when we read or hear about Ologbodiyan’s accusation of corruption of members of this government in a case of the pot calling the kettle black …”.
Not a few serious Nigerians see Ologbondiyan as the professor does.
Just like you would expect the likes of Femi Fani Kayode to soon weigh in, both the Afenifere, PDP wing, and Ohanaeze Ndigbo, have since done with their own completely outlandish interpretations.
Rather than see this as nothing more than a question of scheduling, as if the president’s office should become a bedlam with many ministers congregating, and angling to see him, all at once, the Afenifere spokesperson, who, I learnt, also doubles as speaker for a nebulous Southern and Middle Belt Leadership Forum, roars in: “That statement shows clearly that the president wants to reign as president. As a man that is reigning, he cannot be disturbed by matters of state, like ministers coming to disturb him and bringing files to him. So, he has delegated that responsibility to the de facto prime minister, the Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari. In the midst of what we are going through, should ministers be going through Abba Kyari to see the president?” Then he goes ex-cathedral: ”But our case is that in the midst of what we are, anybody that wants to govern Nigeria; that wants to achieve results and move the country out of these crises, (that person) should be holding almost a daily dialogue with the ministers.” You wonder as to what time the minister gets to work.
Ohanaeze Ndigbo did not disappoint. It weighed in, as expected. Declared its Publicity Secretary, Uche Achi-Okpaga: “This directive is highly condemnable. There are other ranking officials of the federal government, such as the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, so why the Chief of Staff? The appointment of ministers is confirmed by the National Assembly and you are now telling them to report to your aide? It only shows that Buhari is not in charge and that is why things have been going wrong in the country.”
From his statement one would see that for Uche, it is all hearsay for had he read, or heard the president, he should have known, rather than being a sounding bag, that the president included the Secretary to Government in his directive.
However, one can hardly blame these young men who have most probably never functioned in any properly structured organisations. Scheduling complex multiplicity of functions in an office not even half as busy as the presidency must be alien to them.
A quixotic Alhaji Tanko Yakasai who, for purposes of ethnic solidarity was, a few weeks ago, feverishly queuing behind the president on the Ruga Settlement palaver, could be trusted never to let this pass without, opportunistically, saying something. Said the PDP chieftain: “Our experience is that ministers line up in the office of the Chief of Staff (Abba Kyari) even to see him, let alone to see the president. If we continue with this, I don’t expect any miracle to happen.” There’s no way you won’t think the Baba is a minister, talking of his experience.
Nigerians would sure be regaled to no end about this, otherwise simple, and straight forward matter, since no PDP chieftain would like to be outdone by others.
On the long run, they will all come to see that this directive will only facilitate governance and guarantee efficient, and timely delivery of government’s promises to Nigerians; a fact that will make their graduating in inanities totally needless.
Leave a Reply