The question above magically quelled a recent row among friends like the fart of the powerful chief. It drew no comments, no complaints, no conclusions, not even vivid emotions. However, there would have been vivid imaginations. An elderly member of an organisation calmed a raging argument about the new ministers and their portfolios announced by President Bola Tinubu during the week with the question. Those among them who were unsure of how to place the ministerial nominations and their subsequent deployment, quietly watched the proceedings until the question: Did Tinubu disappoint you? The elder said: “All the people we know with Bola Ahmed Tinubu are either his colleagues in politics or his sons and daughters in the trade. That’s all.”
The answers to the question, when they began to come, posted the imagery of the smoky hills of early morning Efon Alaaye to Erio in Ekiti State. The smoking hills of Efon Alaaye are best viewed from the winding road from Iwaraja-Ijesa. They would look every inch like emitting smoke but it’s not smoke. It ordinarily should be hot because smokes come from fire, but it’s not hot because it’s not fire. The arguments for and against Tinubu’s ministerial appointments are like the gaseous sightings that give a smoking appearance. They would disappear when the sun rises; they fade the light comes. Should we expect the light? Do you see light?
Tinubu told us to expect the light and also assured us that we shall see the light. He raised expectations and heightened hopes when he was declared the president-elect by Mahmoud Yakubu’s INEC. He inflated hopes and brought his supporters and the unattached to a crescendo of excitement. He said: “There has been a talk of a government of national unity. My aim is higher than that. I seek a government of national competence.” You remember? He said that in a speech that was entitled: “Nigeria: At the cusp of renewed hope”. Do you recall that momentous speech? On that occasion, he also said “the day of political gamesmanship is long gone. I shall assemble competent men and women and young people from across Nigeria to build a safer, more prosperous and just Nigeria.”
President Tinubu was mellifluous. He was also lyrical and had stood on political jingoism, covering the politics in his speech with his flowing babanriga. It is believed that jingoism was under that carpet under his feet as he spoke. It was the day he promised that there shall be young people and that women shall be prominent in his government. “Whether your faith leads you to pray in a church or mosque will not determine your place in government. Character and competence will.” He proved that with his nomination of, and insistence on Bosun Tijjani, the new Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy. Tijjani was taken up by the Senate on what he had said about governance in the past as it concerns the uncanny APC, but Tinubu overlooked all that to give him a chance to prove himself in the present. This act of the president also lends credence to his contention that “to secure our nation and make it prosperous must be our top priorities. We cannot sacrifice these goals for political expediencies. The whims of politics must take a back seat to the imperatives of governance.”
So, I ask again: Are you disappointed? Does what you see not look like the more you look up, the more you cannot see fire in the smoke from the rolling hills? Have “the whims of politics” taken the back seat indeed? With professional politicians everywhere in the cabinet, didn’t Tinubu stand on politics and cover his real intentions with his gown and cap? To those who feel disappointed, what Tinubu did with his speech when compared with his subsequent appointments was “How else could you capture the world if you don’t attack from the back?” That’s one position that stands out in Snoop Dogg’s song “Stoplight” in his sixth studio album Paid tha Cost to be Da Boss. For many of us who interact with our brothers and sisters in the streets, we say “O gbe won ni handicap”. That’s also simply the argument of Calvin Broadus.
Many are currently feeling fleeced and think that Snoop Dogg’s theory came to play in the ministerial nominations and appointments of President Tinubu. It is not disjointed thinking to express betrayal when a team that was supposed to be dominated by technocrats has political gamesmen like Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, Mohammed Badaru, Simon Lalong, Bello Matawalle, Dave Umahi, and AtikuBagudu. These are former state governors who were appointed just for politics as against the competence the president had posted as a facade. Some even described their appointment as “ínyéndiebea, ìnyendiebea”, a kind of compensatory gift, perhaps except Umahi who was elected senator before his appointment. The anger with the appointment of these former governors is that the citizens of their states believe that they have better individuals who would have been more fitting representatives and also give their states a new face. Some of these ex-governors have the badge of EFCC cases pasted on their lapels. This is in addition to the contentious allegation of abysmal performance in office as governor against some of them. The erstwhile governors are not the best faces and heads from their states at the federal executive council. Some of them are classed in the same morality group as the national chairman of the APC, Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, the man whose name has been wickedly twisted to include the dollar in it.
The ones that were not appointed are also part of the rancid considerations. Their matter is still sultry and contentious. Many who are touching on it are unconvinced by the reasons the Senate cited for the rejection of Mallam Nasir El-Rufai; they are also not persuaded by El-Rufai’s reasons for rejecting his ministerial nomination. A man whose name had rung bells in the build-up to and immediately after the elections is Mr Femi Fani-Kayode. Even from the absolute nothing that was said in the tone of Fani-Kayode’s complete ignoring, the former aviation minister looked everything like the crooked firewood that would have scattered the fire. David Starr Jordan, the founding president of Stanford University, who said “Wisdom is knowing what to do next, virtue is doing it” comes to mind on these two Nigerian politicians. However, are they really out of the political equations of the Tinubu administration?
Those who have been assigned portfolios and are to be sworn in today are also under the scrutiny of Nigerian stakeholders. For instance, stakeholders have been asking themselves who Mr John Enoh’s clothier is in the household of a dyer? They are trying not to sound alarmed, but they know that someone without a background in sports had been thrust into the ministry as its head. All hope is not lost until his steps are experienced. “Conscience, more than customs and laws, is what prevents people from doing wrong,” says Kelsey Grammer, the X-Men movie star. It is the same for all the other ministers and the man who appointed them to serve him and the country. .
Nigerians will not accept annoying “sand and yam” tales from the government that is about to fully take off. It is no longer news that Nigerians are tired of tales such as “We shot the bird and its mother flew away.” If Tinubu didn’t know that the town is not smiling, he would not have been shelling out money and food to states as palliatives without a structure. Now that President Tinubu has formed his cabinet, we hope that we have come to the end of cock-and-bull stories with regard to the economy, our oil and gas dealings, insecurity and sundry items of governance. It is indeed time for Tinubu, his ministers, and his henchmen to disappoint their critics. It is time Tinubu raised the game and the spirit of his supporters.
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