Governing from the seat of their pants

A columnist with one of Nigeria’s leading newspapers, who may not want his name revealed here, sent in a text message agreeing with the “Memo to ‘Minister of the economy,’” theme of the article published in this column last week.

He suggested that “(Wale) Edun, (Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy) and (Atiku) Bagudu (Minister of Budget and Economic Planning) are operating by the seats of their pants,” a hint at the possibility that both may have assumed office without due cues by President Bola Tinubu or made personal preparations of how they would carry out their duties.

By the way, the phrase, “operating by the seats of their pants,” came into use when pilots of the early days of aviation had no navigation instruments and were compelled to fly blind, relying on their intuition to navigate the aircraft to its destination in safety.

If this government has a plan or even objectives, it will have to be called, “gradualism,” which is, just winging it as the days go by; coasting along, hoping for the best, which may eventually lead to the accumulation of incoherent policies. Right now, each minister appears to be dancing to his drummer whom his colleagues know nothing about.

It even appears as if the manifesto and the programme of action presented to the Nigerian electorate by Presidential Candidate Bola Tinubu were written by consultants with immense ability to write moonshine proposals for clients who may not even read them.

The evident lack of cohesion is going to get even more exacerbated with the directive issued by the President that ministers of State should have the authority to grant necessary administrative approvals to departments and agencies within their ministries, without recourse to, or clearance from, their superior ministers.

Arguments that the directive would prevent “underutilization of the expertise and capabilities” of the ministers of state, and “the President believes ministers of state should have the right to make decisions and direct action within their areas of responsibility,” do not wash. The directive is an open invitation for even more chaos.

If senior ministers have hinted that they do not need ministers of state, why is Mr President imposing it on them? After all, Sections 147 and 148 of the Nigerian Constitution say nothing about ministers of state.

These constitutional provisions only require the President to reflect Nigeria’s federal character by appointing at least one minister from each state and to assign responsibility “for any business of Government” to the ministers.

As Governor of Lagos State, the President could barely tolerate his deputy governors, whose offices were even prescribed by Section 186 of the Constitution. He is now imposing unconstitutional ministers of state on his senior ministers. Is appointment as minister of state the only way to provide jobs for the boys?

When Hadi Sirika could not work as Minister of State under Rotimi Amaechi in the Ministry of Transportation and Aviation, President Muhammadu Buhari promptly “separated (their) Paul and Barnabas” into the Ministry of Transportation and the Ministry of Aviation. And the family feud fizzled out.

But this shouldn’t be interpreted as a call to create ministries just to salve the appetite or ego of political associates. It is rather to counsel the President to bring into his government only men that he needs to perform specific assignments for the greatest good of the greatest number of Nigerians and not political jobbers.

Clear evidence that there may be an absence of shared ideology or stated methods and objectives for running this government is the recent reversal, by the new Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, of the policy of his predecessor, Prof Tahir Mamman, to bar candidates lower than 18 years old from admission to Nigeria’s tertiary institutions.

This policy reversal which was done in less than two days of Dr. Alausa’s transfer to the Ministry of Education, smirks almost like a personal settling of scores fueled by a strong lobby. The reversal appears to have been done in a huff and without too much deliberation.

When Prof Muhammad Ali Pate, Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, announced that caesarean section would henceforth be free, no one could tell if the directive came from his whim, or if it was a policy that would continue after he or President Tinubu left office. Primary Health Care has survived Prof Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, its initiator, and the Babangida Administration that adopted it.

No one can confirm if Prof Pate’s statement, “No woman should lose her life simply because she can’t afford a C-Section,” is coming out of his own good heart or from President Tinubu who must have committed himself to the policy. One hopes the President didn’t just hear the news from the media, like everyone else.

The most evident sign of lack of preparation by this government is the declaration in President Tinubu’s Inaugural Day Speech that “Subsidy is gone!” He didn’t seem to have imagined the scale of economic turmoil that Nigerians are now suffering.

This apparent lack of anticipation or preparation for the aftermath of the removal of subsidy from petrol (and from electricity) is evident in the incoherent approaches to ensuring regular supply of petrol and taming its price that rises almost as if it has a mind of its own.

And despite several collapses of the national grid, which the Federal Government owns 100 per cent, neither the Minister of Power nor the folks at the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission have come up with clear-cut policies, programmes and plans to tackle the problem for the long-term.

All they have come up with is increased indirect taxation of consumers that have been forcibly categorized into Band A market of the electricity sector to pay a premium for services that have not improved after six long months. Yet the Minister of Power is hinting at further raising the tariff, even though it is obvious that the problem won’t yield to more money being thrown at it.

Minister Adebayo Adelabu must also realise that the current template that separates the generation, transmission and distribution sub-sectors of the electricity sector into operational silos will not deliver regular supply or lower tariffs of electricity. The economy of large-scale production that is available to an integration of the three operations is not easily available to the segregated operational template that currently exists.

It is somewhat strange that the government does not seem to realise that the continuous collapse of the national grid is manifest evidence of the government’s failure and that the private sector should be invited to invest in the transmission sub-sector so that Nigerian homes and industries can get cheap and regular electricity supply.

The underwhelming cabinet reshuffle, from which many had expected more bloodletting, and not the token of dropping five ministers, only to replace them with seven more, was silent on the overall performance of the government itself.

While Hadiza Bala-Usman’s policy coordination team may be the closest attempt of the Tinubu Administration to coordinate its activities, its brief does not include an interrogation of the overall performance of the government itself. It has no responsibility to assess the coherence of the government’s policies.

So, President Tinubu, be real woke! Incoherence is the real bane of your government.

X:@lekansote, lekansote.com