Can Our Ministers Ever Perform?

Perhaps no country has the highest numbers of yearly selected and appointed ministers in the world like my dear country Nigeria. I am sure we will beat any other nation in the Guinness Book of Record if they were to ask for entries.

Year in, year out, the Nigeria nation and its long frustrated people have had the unpleasant privilege of various individuals in expensive suits, babanriga,tall gele, flambouyant hats and dashing agbada mount the posh position of a minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and at the end of their tenure nothing tangible or profitable is derived from their expensive and visionless term.

I am sure Nigerians can’t remember when last they saw an action minister or a minister who has delivered even one-third of their promises before his or her appointment. The last time I can remember seeing a ministry with positive result  was during the  Gowon, Murtala and Abacha era where mass housing were developed for the populace. We still have the famous FESTAC town in Lagos, developed during the nationalist Yakubu Gowon era. We equally still have the Barnawa, Malali and Unguwar Rimi Mass Housing in Kaduna, initiated by the patriotic Murtala Mohammed government and currently the elite dominated Gwarinpa Housing Estate gingered by the no-nonsense Sani Abacha regime. But since then nothing realistic has been initiated by subsequent administrations in their housing sector,  upon the billions of naira and resources at their disposal. No Housing Minister has ever thought it right to develop affordable mass housing units for the average Nigerian despite our vast land, human and capital resources. Instead we see expensive structures being developed for the elite to be distributed and sold among them at the end of the day across the country.  

Right now, it is time for the nomination, clarification and subsequent appointment of another large returnee of old and new ministers and as usual the politicking, blackmail and expectation fever is growing higher every day. The list of who is who in the next cabinet is generating a lot of tension among kinsmen, governors and politicians. It is no longer based on competence and merit to be a Nigerian minister; it is all about godfatharism, rotation and insular zoning.  Who cares if you are one of the dumbest guy or girl in your class during your school days, or a failed civil servant, businessman or woman; all the credentials they need is what zone and whom you know in the corridors of power. It is saddening that when nations are moving forward and developing rapidly with visionary and capable brains, Nigeria,the purported giant of Africa is still enmeshed in nepotism and a myopic Federal Character selection process in determining competent individuals to make things happen across virtually all the ministries, agencies and parastatals across the country. Part of the reasons why Nigerians are yet to feel the impact of most of these ministries and agencies.

A critical look at the Nigerian ministries and their periodical ministers would reveal a shameful failure, due to lack of vision, wrong placement, misplaced priorities and massive corruption among the staff and ministers of these ministries. Our courts are filled with criminal cases against various ministers and heads of various agencies across the country and nothing tangible ever comes out from them at the end of the day, with new flambouyant ones selected to replace them and business goes on as usual. We are witnesses to the emergence of unqualified men and women whose only credentials are their flowing babanriga, agbada, red-caps and big hats, including various designs of flashy gele, buba, and rich hollandis. These men and women come in, make a lot of noise and propaganda and at the end pack their new acquired wealth and stolen resources, then vamoose into thin air to await their future appointment to come and chop.

All over our ministries, none among them can hold their heads high and boldly pinpoint what they have done for the Nigerian people over the decades. Is it our failed Ministry of Education and the various visionless ministers who have come and failed woefully to conquer the decay in our educational system? Or is it the Ministry of Agriculture with its confused ministers who have made food more expensive and unaffordable to the Nigerian masses? Maybe we should commend our wobbling Ministry of Health and its short sighted ministers whose ministry has over the years sent uncountable numbers of Nigerians to their early graves and turned our various hospitals into morgues. Probably we should be fair and recommend our Labour Ministry and its ministers to neighbouring countries to teach them how they have been able to provide employment to various teeming unemployed Nigerians and succeeded in ensuring the payment of the N18, 000 Minimum Wage including all the other approved wages to the Nigerian worker. Or better we should recommend our Ministry of Housing to other countries who are finding it difficult to shelter their citizens and show them how the various ministers were able to make sure that 70% of Nigerians now have a home of their own and the remaining 30% are waiting in line for their houses. Again they should be bold to tell them how they made it possible for Nigerians living across the country to be paying some of the highest house rents in the world and always at the mercy of their landlords, including some of the various infrastructure they initiated and developed during their tenure. Why not our moribund Ministry of Power and Steel and its various noise making ministers and their unfulfilled promises of various thousands of megawatts?  No, maybe the Ministry of Petroleum would be better, at least the various ministers that had piloted the ministry would be proud to show how they have ensured that their citizens don’t enjoy the various petroleum products in their land and happy that the price of kerosene remains ridiculous, with Nigerians now better off with the soaring price of petrol and diesel.  Or come to think of it, we can as well  suggest our  Ministry of Sport and Youth Development and its babanriga, agbada and suits floating ministers whose tenure has done nothing but relegated our hitherto sport glory and youths development over the years. We can as well show them how nepotism, favoritism and corruption have become part of the game, with large fans and competitors.    What about our Ministry of Science and Technology? We can show the world what the ministry and its ministers have done over the years, like the dream to produce a Nigerian car, our own made in Nigeria computers and how we have been able to conquer the airspace, including our adventure into world-class inventions. I  am confident that our Ministry of Transport would be proud to display our famous Keke NAPEP and remind the world that we are still trying hard to revive our dilapidated rail lines and trains.

It would be an abomination if we failed to recommend our popular Ministry of Information and Communication and its famous Rebrand Nigeria projects initiated by the various smooth talking ministers. Who knows, we might become a model for others to copy in terms of Information Communication Technology (ICT), newspaper and radio production, including educative indigenous TV programmes. What about our Ministry of Environment and its various visor ministers who could unflinchingly take visitors around our various cities and show them how neat and tidy they look, including the various slums and ghettos across all our regions. Or if they can’t do it their counterparts in our bragging Ministry of Culture and Tourism could come to their aid. I am sure they would be proud and happy to show curious tourists around some spectacular scenes across the country.

We should not leave our dear Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its Internal Affair counterpart from this gesture. We should be proud to talk about how they have been able to protect Nigerians in their land and abroad and ensure that we now have countless local and foreign investors in virtually all the states of the federation. Their grammar blowing ministers I’m sure would be proud to tell the world how they have been able to cleanse Nigeria image and make it possible for Nigerians to now travel freely  across the globe without molestation and harassment by various security agencies at international airports and borders.

Ha! I almost forgot our famous Ministry of Defense and its various security agencies. We don’t really need to talk much here, they already have a reputation in international peacekeeping, but all the same it is important that they tell the world why the security of lives and property in their own backyard is still eluding them. And in order not to be accused of gender insensitivity, I think it is important if we also recommend our fashionable and ceremonious eminent Ministry of Women Affairs and its colourful ministers. I trust our women with their ability to tell the world how they have reduced poverty among rural women and staunchly eradicate the menace of prostitution among our young girls and women across the country and equally provide them with husbands and dignified jobs.  I am sure they won’t forget to add the various sharing of rice, atanpa, political branded wrappers and different bars of soap to various women groups across all the geo-political zones. 

And finally we should be courageous to recommend our respected Ministry of Justice so that others might learn from our various court cases and judgment over the years. Cases and judgment like the famous Tafa Balogun, six months jail term, the Olabode George, two years in prison verdict and the six months Cecilia Ibru ruling among others. I am sure it will be against justice if our justice ministry fail to update the world on the other various cases and judgment of chicken, goat and bread thieves, including pickpockets and other minor offenders serving various long terms in our prisons and how they have been able to ensure that our prisons are decongested and made it possible that all Nigerians irrespective of class and status are not above the law.

Well, let’s  hope we are in for a good time this time around with the swearing-in of the incoming men and women in flambouyant dresses, large entourage of siren blowing convoy and daily promises. Let’s hope they would perform wonder in the next coming wooly days they are going to spend in their various designated ministries.

NEW  NIGERIAN  ON  SUNDAY, JULY 3 ,  2011