Buhari’s ministers and their no go areas

President Muhammadu Buhari’s directive to ministers to route all their submissions and meeting appointments through the Chief of Staff (CoS), Mallam Abba Kyari, and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr Boss Mustapha, has ruffled some feathers, as it has been seen as a means to deny the ministers direct access to their principal while making the CoS and the SGF more powerful.  “In terms of coordination, kindly ensure that all submissions for my attention or meeting requests be channeled through the Chief of Staff, while all Federal Executive Council matters be coordinated through the Secretary to the Government of the Federation,” the president told the incoming ministers at the close of a two-day retreat for them, permanent secretaries and other top government officials prior to the swearing in of the members of the Federal Executive Council (FEC).

If they thought they did not hear him well, Buhari re-echoed the instruction 24 hours after administering the oath of office on the new ministers, except that this time, he uttered it with a veiled threat for anyone bold enough to ignore it. “As I said yesterday, in terms of coordinating communication, kindly ensure that all submissions for my attention or meeting requests be channeled 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,” he said, adding for effect: “I must emphasise the importance of communication and harmony within our government. You must work in harmony with your fellow ministers. Communication – vertical and horizontal -can only be ignored at a price.”

Some observers have questioned the wisdom behind creating a wall between the president and his ministers. Critics say that it will leave the president with only secondhand interpretation of submissions since what he will see are basically the views of the intermediaries rather than the sources themselves. They also believe that passing every submission and request for appointment with the president only through the two designated recipients will leave too much on the plate of the CoS and the SGF with unintended negative consequences for the smooth running of the administration. Even though the ministers have not been fenced completely from the president since either the CoS or the SGF can facilitate their meeting with the commander-in-chief, some people fear that where either of the middlemen is not disposed towards specific ministers meeting physically with the president, the ministers involved stand the risk of being completely frozen out except during meetings of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) with the president in attendance.

Giving such instruction is not new to the president. While swearing ministers in 2015, he handed down the same order even though only the COS was involved on that occasion. His intention did not quite materialise because of extraneous factors chief which was his ill-health and his subsequent sustained medical leave abroad. When he finally returned, he became open to receiving most well-wishers, leading to a relaxed enforcement of the initial directive, a situation that was exploited by a class of super ministers who were then able to saunter through the villa corridor to the president’s office almost at will. But on a general level, most of the ministers still did not have direct access to the president during his first tenure.

This seemed to be what the erstwhile Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, in October last year, carped about when he felt that the former Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr Maikanti Baru, was undercutting him as the supervising minister of the corporation. Due to lack of access, he could not bring his grouse physically before the president and was forced to do a letter that later leaked.  In the letter to the president, Kachikwu had said: “Let me start by welcoming you back to the country and by thanking God for your recovery from ill health. I join millions of Nigerians who rejoice and thank God for grating you the grace of healing and strength to continue the good work you have done for Nigeria in your long illustrious career in public service. I would have wanted to come personally after receiving you at the airport to felicitate with you and discuss matters herein contained, however, I have been unable to secure an appointment to see you despite very many attempts.”

The denial of direct access to the ministers is coming at a time when some observers believe that the president had governed the country by proxy, with a shadowy cabal often fingered as being responsible for many of the decisions emanating from the presidency. Cynics now say that he appears not only to give credence to this claim, but also has further strengthened the unseen hand allegedly running things on his behalf.

• Ministers, your POAs, please

Although the President may want to keep his ministers at arm’s length, he has made it abundantly clear that they are saddled with the responsibility of changinWg the lot of the majority of poor Nigerians, who he said,were anxiously hoping for a better life – “a Nigeria in which they do not have to worry about what they will eat, where they will live or if they can afford to pay for their children’s education or healthcare.” While observing that the remaining period of his administration is short, he reminded the new ministers not to expect praise in their new venture as “public service is not easy work, and at times it can be thankless. I am therefore charging you all to see this opportunity to serve as an honour, to give your best to deliver on this mandate, for a more prosperous Nigeria, not for some, but for all Nigerians.”

President Buhari is hopeful that the new ministers are ready to work, having convinced himself that they share in his commitment to move the country towards a better future. Therefore, he told them at the FEC inauguration: “As you are aware, the core objectives of this administration are to improve security, achieve diversified, inclusive economic growth and fight corruption. I am convinced that we can build a buoyant economy that supports inclusive growth and creates broad-based prosperity for every Nigerian – one that will absorb the two million Nigerians entering the labour market each year, as well as reduce the backlog of over 20 million unemployed or underemployed Nigerians. We must also intensify efforts to reduce internal security threats and eliminate corruption at all levels so as to ensure that our citizens have a safe and corruption-free environment where they can live and conduct their businesses, without fear and intimidation. Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, all these are only possible if we are relentless about delivering on the priorities that are vital to our overall objectives – and on the specific actions and targets that have been identified to guide policy direction and implementation as specified in our roadmap.”

Buhari also stressed that the primary business of the administration over the next four years is to work together towards delivering the results that the people of Nigeria expect from it, saying: “We have a great opportunity as an administration to build on the progress already made in order to fundamentally shift Nigeria’s trajectory on the path of steady growth and development.” Recognising the acrimony that has existed, during the last tenure, between substantive ministers and their ministers of state on the one hand and the substantive ministers and permanent secretaries, the president counselled the ministers to work closely with the permanent secretaries and chief executive officers of agencies under their purview for effective implementation of their mandates, saying: “This has become necessary considering the fact that, the task of moving the country to the Next Level requires dedication, focus, and collective efforts.”

The ministers have all resumed in their new roles knowing that they have their work cut out for them in the about three years and nine months left in the lifespan of the administration to make the desired impact. There is no better demonstration of the pressure they will come under than Buhari’s announced intention to watch them keenly through a monitoring and evaluation framework his administration plans to put in place to track the performance of each ministry.