The talk about an impending cabinet reshuffle is getting thicker on a daily basis. Long before President Muhammadu Buhari jetted out of the country on his second medical journey to London, speculations had been rife that he had perfected plans to drop some ministers who had become liabilities to him. For two years, Nigerians have watched with utter disappointment as every aspect of the nation’s life has continued to experience decay despite having ministers who preside over different sectors. The essence of ministers is to assist the president deliver on his mandate, but it appears that most of the ministers have been in slumbering mood. Nothing is happening on their beats. It appears they do not want to run farther and faster than their boss, the president. It had been hinted some time ago that the president was slowing down the pace of work of the ministers. It took the president about six months to appoint ministers and many of them have been learning the ropes; they have not really come to terms with the enormous work expected of them. They are ever learning and never coming to knowledge; it appears they are following the steps of their boss who thinks he has donkey years to deploy the magic wand to effect the change he promised Nigerians. The way things are, 100 new ministers will never deliver the change Nigeria desperately needs. Like Barrack Obama, former US president observed, Nigeria does not need men, but institutions. The Buhari administration has not built institutions; the president is still relying on old colleagues of his who made name yesteryear and using the analogue to solve the digital problem of today’s Nigeria. It is not about hiring new ministers; it is about empowering the existing ones. For instance, Babatunde Fashola, minister of works, power, and housing; Kayode Fayemi, minister of solid minerals; Ogbonnaya Onu, minister of science and technology; and other ministers have good and fantastic plans which they trumpet at every forum, but the more they speak fine English, the more things are going further wrong in the areas they are presiding over. So the problem appears to be the inability of the president to provide the necessary impetus. One would have thought that the likes of Fashola would work a magic as a federal minister. He talked so much about the deplorable roads in Apapa when he was the governor of Lagos. Pray, is there anything in the corridors of power that drain people of their reasonability when they get there?
Bewitched Nigerians!
Paul the Apostle got incensed by the childishness of the Galatians that he cried out, “O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, that you should not obey the truth…?” If Paul was alive today, he would have used harsher words on the Nigerian populace as a result of their extreme gullibility. There is no doubt that the Nigerian masses have been bewitched by the political class who remote-control them to believe all manner of lies. Nigerians are watching helplessly as their so-called leaders take them for a ride. Or how else can one interpret the shenanigan going on, all in the name of illness of President Muhammadu Buhari? How did Nigerians degenerate into a nation with leaders who think without their head; a crop of desperadoes who occupy positions for the sake of it? Little wonder Donald Trump, president of America,recently prescribed re-colonisation for them. It is an insult on the sensibilities of Nigerians for their so-called leaders to have elevated the illness of the president to a political discourse; it has become part of governance to abandon the pressing need of governance for a worthless visit and pilgrimage to London in the name of seeing how the president is faring. Nigerians have indeed been bewitched! In the last one week, a huge number of political actors embarked on a pilgrimage to London to worship Buhari. Amid searing poverty in the land; at a time when a good number of Nigerians are hungry and cannot find food to eat, their leaders spend huge amount of taxpayers’ money on a rendezvous all in the name of going to see a sick president. Why do we delight in inanities? In their usual lack of respect and consideration for the poor masses of this country, they went to London and the only picture that they felt was good enough to send home is where they’re squandering the people’s money. Shameless leaders? And the president they went to see was sitting comfortable at the banquet. They brandished bananas and assorted drinks. So, London bananas are good to be advertised, when we are talking about made-in Nigeria goods. How many times have they advertised bananas during their programmes in Nigeria? Delinquent leaders?
As if that’s not bad enough insult and insensitivity, seven other governors left last Tuesday and by Wednesday, local televisions back home were showing a sick president laughing hysterically. Insult! If he is so healthy to engage in that excessive hearty laughter, why is he still in London? Too bad! Buhari’s continued refusal to address Nigerians, preferring instead to be entertaining visitors at a heavy cost to Nigeria smacks of insensitivity to the plight of Nigerians who are dying under the weight of his harsh economic policies. If he had any regard for the people, he could have considered it necessary to make a broadcast from his base in London. It is awful, very awful. With leaders like this, Nigeria’s forward march is very much in doubt.
Anachronistic NOA!
The Holy Book says, “Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves…” By the same token, the National Orientation Agency (NOA) as the body tasked with “communicating government policy, staying abreast of public opinion, and promoting patriotism, national unity, and development of Nigerian society” appears to have lost its saltiness and is no longer good for the Nigeria of today. It is good to be discarded and scrapped out of existence. The NOA seems to be an agency that has lost its usefulness at a time in the nation’s history when its role is needed so desperately. NOA is an agency under the Federal Ministry of Information with a motto “Do the right thing: transform Nigeria.” But it is neither doing the right thing nor transforming anything. Today, the agency is dead and has surrendered its role to the minister of information who does not draw a demarcation between defending the government and releasing beneficial information. NOA by now should be telling Nigerians the state of the nation in a language that would not make them panic. In performing its role, the agency is meant to couch its words in such a way that the people see hope in the face of hopelessness. But it is at best a propaganda tool to spew outright lies in defence of the government. Indeed, the agency has become moribund and anachronistic, and must be scrapped.
In 40 days Shekau must be overthrown?
Pray, how many times does a person die? Once? But in the eyes of the military, Abubakar Shekau, leader of the Islamist Boko Haram sect has died severally and yet, still lives. On many occasions, the military had celebrated the death of the man. The nation newspapers and electronic media made headline news over the repeated deaths. At a point it was said that the military doubted the possibility of Shekau living after the mortal injuries he sustained. When news began to circulate that the man had resurfaced to taunt the leadership of the country, the military said it was another man with the ruthless mien of the ‘fallen’ insurgent leader. They bandied this falsehood for months until they came clean and acknowledged that the enemy must have used his “otumokpo” to come back to life. Now, the highest office of the military, through the Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-General Tukur Buratai, has given the soldiers fighting hard in the Sambisa forest to snuff life out of Shekau within 40 days, whatever it will take them. Why forty days? Why so long a period? Why not in a week or two? The other time we were told that the Boko Haram has been sacked from the Sambisa forest.
Where are they fighting from now? How many Sambisa forests do we have in Borno State? If the military has captured Sambisa, where is Shekau and his men launching attack from? How come the military has not completely done away with the menace of Boko Haram? Does it mean Nigeria does not have the capacity to quell insurrection if one rises tomorrow from outside? I am disturbed that this Boko Haram war is taking unnecessary time to come to an end. We appreciate the recent positive reinforcement (promotions) given to soldiers in the Boko Haram war as a boost to their morale that was speedily dampening.
Zebulon Agomuo
