Recall that the President Muhammadu Buhari led government last December appointed 209 eminent Nigerians as board chairmen and 1,258 members into the government owned agencies and parastatals including those in the aviation sector.
Announcing the appointments then, the Secretary to the Government of Federation (SGF), Mr Boss Mustapha, declared: “Mr President considered the approval for the constitution of the Boards, as well as the appointments, very necessary so as to provide a proper governance and oversight structure for government agencies and parastatals.
“The constitution of the boards with the appointments is a demonstration of this government’s efforts aimed at building strong institutions of governance, and by extension, improving the quality of policy formulation and supervision.”
In order words, the presence of the boards will apart from encouraging proper governance, will also help checkmate any illegalities on the parts of the ministers and the chief executives of the government owned parastatals and agencies.
It is no longer news that five months after the appointments of the boards with the directive from President Buhari that all the ministers in charge of the parastatals and agencies should inaugurate the boards, the minister in charge of aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, is yet to comply.
His decision not to inaugurate the boards has started generating debates within the sector with many asking for reasons behind it.
While some who tried to defend him attributed the minister’s refusal to inaugurate the boards to what they called errors made in the appointment in view of the composition of the board members vis-a-vis the non-inclusion of professionals, many others have insisted that majority of the board members are professionals in their own fields; hence, all that is needed is for the technical personnel across the aviation agencies to be more patriotic in their roles.
While everyone who spoke has the right to his/her opinion, one thing that is obviously wrong is the fact that the decision not to inaugurate the boards at all may surely be counter productive based on the important functions such boards are expected to play which is missing.
Amidst this abnormality, it has again been argued that the excuse that the aviation boards were not inaugurated because of the non inclusion of technical personnel among them is debatable based on the pedigree of those appointed.
Agreed that having technical personnel on the boards would have been an added advantage, but unfortunately, even when the so-called professionals were in the past appointed into positions within the sector, they ended up being failures.
The fact that an error has been made in the composition of the boards should not justify why they should be left hanging while their functions are in vacuum.
While no one is canvassing against the inclusion of technical personnel on the boards, since this is not the first time such an error is made, it is only proper for the minister to draw the attention of those behind such appointments to the error to prevent a repeat in future without necessarily jettisoning the directives to inaugurate the present boards.
The need for the minister to urgently inaugurate these boards becomes imperative as it will give room for checkmating any illegality especially now when electioneering campaigns will soon start.
Besides, failure to inaugurate the boards may have a negative effect on the agencies since the financial spending by their heads are limited by law as they can only go through the board for approval.
There is therefore no more need for the minister to delay the inauguration of the boards under the excuse of ‘error’ which is not new to the system that is already bedeviled with injustice and many past mistakes.
The continuous refusal to inaugurate the boards because of an error will only be like throwing the baby out with the bathe water. There are so many errors calling for correction within the sector and therefore, one error cannot be addressed in isolation.
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