Governor Aminu Tambuwal has said that the failure of President Muhammadu Buhari to appoint his cabinet in good time when he was first elected in 2015 negatively impacted his goodwill and performance.
The Governor of Sokoto told Daily Trust in an interview that delay gave the public an impression that the President would come up with a very fantastic team of ministers. He said everyone was however disappointed when the list finally came out and they were wondering why there was any delay at all.
Tambuwal said: “We participated in that process and had a very clear understanding of the need for a change, and God blessed our efforts and President Buhari became the president of Nigeria.
Unfortunately, in the process, because of the way and nature the government was formed, some of these problems began to manifest, right from the nomination and proclamation of the National Assembly and the emergence of its leadership, and all of that. Suddenly, the differences of the political parties that formed the coalition to form the government became manifest and there were squabbles.
On the side of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), President Buhari was at the helm of affairs. While Yemi Osibanjo was the vice president, the New PDP was able to get the president of the Senate and Speaker of the House of Representatives. You could see that there was clearly a major disagreement between the legislature, mainly the Senate, and the executive arm of government. That somehow impacted on the takeoff of the administration.
The delay by Mr President in appointing his ministers also impacted negatively. He came with a very heavy goodwill and all of that, the support was there, but that delay really didn’t give him a good start.
The expectation was that the president would come up with a very fantastic team of ministers, but by the time the list finally came out, people wondered why there was a delay.
Again, in the process of forming the cabinet, there was not much consultation with other stakeholders to form the government. So with all of these, takeoff really affected the administration.
I remember very well that a number of governors met Mr President and advised him, I think in 2015/2016, to appoint economic and political advisers, but he clearly told us that he did not need any of them. But towards the end of 2021 the president decided to appoint an economic adviser.
You can see that, honestly, from takeoff, there were some mistakes. I don’t like mentioning names, but some of the principal officers of his administration had no public service experience. However, some of them were good in the private sector. They did not also have democratic governance experience. And the dynamics of democratic governance are fundamentally different, even from serving under a military dispensation, not to talk of the situation where most of them at that closer level are controlling power. They had no public service record at all; so it was a fundamental mistake.
I know there are some areas in government you need to bring in people from the private sector who can serve, but you must be able to separate the two.
You cannot expect someone from the private sector to work for you efficiently as secretary to the government without a public service record. It will be extremely difficult. If he had served either as a minister or in public service somewhere, he can come in and serve as secretary to the federal government, a position that is essentially about managing the entirety of the executive arm of government in a way. When you have someone without that experience in that position, then the takeoff would be faulty.
The Governor also said they thought that the current Chief of Staff, Ibrahim Gambari would come in and improve things, however, everything has remained the same.
Tambuwal added:
When you have a faulty start, it will always be difficult to correct. And of course, it has not been effectively corrected. We thought that with the coming of Professor Ibrahim Gambari as chief of staff, things would improve, but honestly, it is not as we expected.
