President Muhammadu Buhari may swear in his 43 ministerial nominees on Wednesday following their confirmation by the Senate. The upper legislative chamber ended the screening of Buhari’s nominees for ministerial appointments on Tuesday and approved all the 43 sent in by the president.
But the portfolio for each of the nominees is still unknown and the president is expected to assign them portfolios when they are inaugurated. A number of senior figures from Buhari’s first term will return, including Zainab Ahmed (finance minister), Babatunde Fashola (works, power and power minister), Geoffrey Onyeama (foreign affairs minister), Rotimi Amaechi (transport minister) and Lai Mohammed (information portfolio). However, returning ministers may not hold the same positions they held in the last four years.
Buhari was criticized by opposition figures and some analysts for being slow to name his cabinet since his victory over People’s Democratic Party Atiku Abubakar in the February 23 election. The president was also berated for the low percentage of women in his picks. Of all the 43 nominees only seven were women- Sharon Ikeazor, Gbemisola Saraki, Ramatu Tijjani-Aliyu, Sadiya Farouk, Mariam Katagun and Pauline Tallen joined returning minister Zainab Ahmed to make the seven women on the ministerial list.
While many would argue that it’s an improvement on his first term cabinet that had only six women, it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. In 2015, Buhari appointed six women in his 37 ministers. This means that while six women in 2015 represented 19% of the total, seven in 2019 represents only 16%.
Besides, Buhari took six months to swear in a cabinet after the 2015 election – a delay critics contend contributed to the slow response to low oil prices that pushed Nigeria into a recession in 2016. In 2019, it took the president almost two months to send the list of nominees to the senate. The business community complained about stagnation. In one week, the stock market lost billions of Naira on account of creeping uncertainty. Eventually, President Buhari brought a list of 43 names that were screened by the senate in six days beginning July 23.
The list was not even worth the wait and the screening process was ridiculous and a charade; or just a waste of time. In 2015, President Buhari promised a lean government; merging some Ministries and submitted a list of 36 Ministers. In 2019, the list was increased to 43 Ministers, pointing to a bigger government and overhead and a reversal of principle. The 2019 list failed to pass even the constitutional threshold requiring the President to pick at least one Minister from every state of the Federation as the FCT had no nominee.
The list also fails the general test of inclusion as the average age of the nominees is 50+ leaving the Nigerian youths who wanted a place at the Ministerial table with a short end of the stick. Also, those who had hoped for a government of National Unity were disappointed as the cabinet list was exclusively an APC list. Nominees submitted by PDP and APGA Southeast Governors were ignored. President Buhari chose party loyalists and 14 former Ministers and added a total of 29 names that do not necessarily inspire integrity and competence.
The screening process itself was a huge disappointment and an anti-climax. Of the 43 nominees screened, 30 were asked to just take a bow and go. The argument that the Rules of the Senate allow the Senators to ask persons who had been in the federal legislature before now to take a bow and go turned out to be an excuse for sycophancy and abuse of privilege. The Senate violated its own rules when it over-stretched that privilege to female nominees, who were asked to take a bow and leave. One nominee was asked to take a bow because he comes from the same state as the Senate President and his brother has been a loyal and committed party man. Another nominee was described as “handsome”. Both were asked to take a bow and go. Festus Keyamo was asked to recite the second stanza of the national anthem, but the Senate President, raised an objection and directed that the question should not be asked.
Finally, nobody knew the portfolios of the would-be Ministers; hence, the entire charade was merely guess-work. Rather than insist that the President provide the portfolios, the Senate transformed itself into a presidential liaison office.
