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Ever since the administration of President Bola Tinubu came on stream, Nigerians have been criticizing the bloated nature of the cabinet, especially in an era of lean government pulses, economic crises and sundry financial challenges. With 53 ministers at the times same government has been asking Nigerians to bear the brunt and cost of hard economic measures, while appointed and elected public officials bask in conspicuous affluence and profligacy did not go well with Nigerians.

Only recently, the World Bank took a hard look at the economic situation in the land and concluded that despite prospects of growth, the situation is still dire , advising government to cut costs, reduce cost of governance and adopt measures to reduce the heat on the economy.

To provide urgent relief to the Nigerian population, the bank, which rates the Nigerian government as “average,” advised accelerating targeted cash transfers.

Here are its recommendations:
Cut wasteful expenditures that are not essential, such as the purchase of vehicles and external training.
Reduce the cost of collection for MDAs and government-owned entities.
Accelerate the rollout of targeted cash transfers.
Allocate savings from PMS subsidy removal to sustainably expand cash transfers and other well-targeted support.

The announcement few days ago of adoption of cut costing measures according to some experts spoken to by reporters, is an indication of the heavy influence the international financial institution has on the Tinubu administration.

Before the Bank weighed in, many Nigerians had called for a reduction in the cost of governance to no avail.

Mr.West Idahosa SAN, a legal luminary and former member of the House of Representatives said the President need to do more in cutting the cost of governance

“I think President Tinubu’s administration needs to do more surgery to ensure a noticeable downward review in the cost of governance. I really can’t understand why the government needs over 50 Ministers to run its business. While there may be the need to reasonably reward many of the political field workers that helped President Tinubu’s election, the adjusted cost of governance is still too high and would continue to eat up our national savings at the expense of denying key sectors of the economy, the required revenue. No Minister needs more than two vehicles. An official vehicle and a back up. The type of official vehicle matters. Why can’t the federal government have a policy of patronizing only locally assembled vehicles instead of spending fortunes on luxury SUV like hip up artists?

“How many of them would buy several of such vehicles for their own use with their resources in private life? When is this administration going to implement the Oransaye report?”

” We are witnessing the creation of more Geopolitical Development Commissions and parastatals instead of cutting same down. The story of NDDC since it was set up shows that the hood does not make the monk. NDDC has merely been a cash cow for some politicians across the country. Compare the manifest underdevelopment of the Niger Delta region with the astonishing development of oil/mineral producing regions in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Gulf states, it won’t take long to figure it out that more holes are being created in our national coffers for official and associated parasites to do more havoc to our national revenue for private gains only. It’s time for this government to be realistic, if it really wants to work for Nigeria and posterity”

Professor Adeagbo Moritiwon a political scientist told reporters that ” this administration listens more to its creditors than Nigerians. The idea put forward by Bayo Onanuga , Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Public Communication, that the reshuffle and cut -costing measures was informed by government listening to the feelings of the people was an afterthought, it was not true. Well, whatever may be the case, Nigerians should pray that the administration should have the liver to go the whole hog in cutting costs and deliver dividends of democracy.”

Dr.Olufemi Omoyele of the Osun State University said ” I think the decision taken to reshuffle the cabinet and reduce costs has the input of the World Bank. The administration is also aware of the perceptions of the people that a lot of waste of public funds goes into managing bloated government. ”

As it is , Tinubu’s cabinet reshuffle on Wednesday, which had Ogun State reportedly producing four ministers, the highest by a state in the cabinet, has sparked reactions across the country.

In a significant cabinet shakeup during the 19th Federal Executive Council meeting at the State House, Abuja, Tinubu approved the re-assignment of 10 ministers to new portfolios, discharged five others and nominated seven new ministerial appointees for onward transmission to the Senate for confirmation.

This came as the President renamed the Ministry of Nigeria Delta Development to the Ministry of Regional Development, scrapped the Ministry of Sports Development, and merged the Ministries of Tourism and Arts and Culture to become the Federal Ministry of Art, Culture, Tourism and the Creative Economy.

The seven new ministers, pending their confirmation by the Senate, are Dr Jumoke Oduwole (Ogun State) as Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment; Dr Nentawe Yilwatda (Plateau) as Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction; Muhammadu Dingyadi (Sokoto) as Minister of Labour & Employment; Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu (Imo) as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs; Idi Maiha (Kaduna) as Minister of Livestock Development; Yusuf Ata (Kano) as Minister of State, Housing and Urban Development and Dr Suwaiba Ahmad (Kano) as Minister of State for Education.

The incoming Dr Jumoke Oduwole joins Wale Edun (Minister of Finance), Dr Adekunle Salako, the new Minister of State for Health, who was previously Minister of State, Environment and Bosun Tijani (Minister of Communications and Digital Economy) as ministers of Ogun extraction.

Senate, SANs back FG

While the appointments of the four Ogun ministers raised eyebrows in some quarters, with some of the opinion that it fell short of the Federal Character criteria for appointments, Chairman, Senate Committee on Federal Character, Allwell Onyesoh (PDP, Rivers East), acknowledged that while the Federal Character was a constitutional matter, it wasn’t the sole criterion for selecting ministers and other high-level public office holders.

He said, “Yes, Federal Character is an important issue, and I am sure the President would not want to go against the Constitution. However, what the Constitution states is that one person per state, so, once that has been met, I am not sure there should be an issue.”

Senator Onyesoh added, “The Federal Character isn’t the only requirement; we need competent people. The Constitution also empowers the President to be proactive, which means he is allowed to bring efficient people on board to do their jobs.

“Why are people so critical of this administration? It wasn’t the same for the previous administration.”

The President on Thursday also restricted Ministers, Ministers of State, and Heads of Agencies of the Federal Government to a maximum of three vehicles in their official convoys.

“No additional vehicles will be assigned to them for movement,” the President affirmed in a statement he signed Thursday titled, ‘President Tinubu issues new directives on reduction in cost of governance.’

Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Mr Bayo Onanuga, who released the statement, said “The cost-cutting measure was announced today (Thursday) in a statement signed by the President.”

In January 2024, Tinubu issued a directive which the Presidency said was to reduce government expenditure.

The directive included reducing his entourage on foreign trips from 50 to 20 officials.

For local trips, he reduced it to 25 officials.

Similarly, he reduced the Vice President’s entourage to five officials on foreign trips and 15 for local trips.

In the directive, Tinubu also ordered all ministers, ministers of state, and heads of agencies to have at most five security personnel attached to them.

“The security team will comprise four police officers and one Department of State Services officer.

“No additional security personnel will be assigned, he ordered,” the statement read.

President Tinubu also instructed the National Security Adviser to engage with the Military, Paramilitary and Security Agencies to determine a suitable reduction in their vehicle and security personnel deployment.

The Presidency said “All affected officials are expected to comply with these new measures immediately, underscoring the urgency and seriousness of these changes.”

A former President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Dr Olisa Agbakoba (SAN), also said there was no law that stopped the Nigerian President from appointing more than one minister from a state.

Agbakoba said it was the President’s prerogative to appoint any number of persons from a state to serve as ministers.

Agbakoba, who spoke to one of our correspondents via the telephone on Thursday, stated that the only restriction was that the ministers must be appointed across all 36 states.

“That’s the only restriction,” he said. So, one may say why four? But nothing stops the President from appointing even 10.

“There’s no law that says he can’t appoint more than one. The only thing the law says is that he must appoint one person from each state on the principle of Federal Character, so that every state feels included. The point is, are all the 36 states not represented in the cabinet? The minimum requirement is that there has to be one minister from all 36 states.”

Another Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, explained that the constitution stipulated that in appointing ministers, each state of the federation must have representatives.

He added that even though there was no requirement for equality in the number of ministers, the situation where one state had four ministers and another had only one was not good enough.

“I think that the situation whereby one state has four ministers, and another state has only one, does not augur well for inclusivity, for equity, and for justice. And in this particular instance, the government is saying that we should run an economy that is new and budget-friendly.

“So, to then bloat the ministers list by picking four people from a particular state is to give the impression that there are no people from other states,” he said.

“This current government should not replicate the errors of the past. I believe that if somebody is elected from a particular region, he should carry other regions along, so that we can reduce the agitation for separatism, agitation for autonomy and agitation for secession as being advocated by other sections of the country that are marginalised,” he said.

In his response Niyi Akintola (SAN), said the position of Section 14 was very clear as the general rule was to give each state one minister.

He said, “The President is bound to work very hard to ensure that each state gets one minister. And there is no state legally that doesn’t have one minister.

“The President has complied with the requirement of the law, the Constitution but, where you have discretion, you can use the discretion. Discretion is not mandatory but a duty is mandatory.

He further stated that the duty of the president was to ensure that no state should be without a minister.

“I am from Oyo state and we have only one minister and we are not complaining. Can you point out one state in Nigeria that doesn’t have a minister? One minister from Plateau State resigned and he was replaced with another one.

“I don’t know why people make noise where there are no issues, we should look at if he breached the Constitution, to me these are not issues,” he said.

The decisions taken so far are aimed at t curbing unnecessary expenses and encourage fiscal responsibility within the government, according to a statement by the Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Ononuga, which was issued yesterday.

The directive follows widespread calls for the government to reduce the cost of governance amidst Nigeria’s economic challenges.

Critics, including labour unions and civil society groups, have pointed out that funds spent on running the government could be better utilised for policies and programmes that would benefit ordinary Nigerians.

Given the economic difficulties being faced by citizens, the president faced a backlash for the large size of the federal government delegation to the COP28 Climate Summit in Dubai in 2023.

In response, Tinubu took steps to reduce the number of officials on foreign and domestic trips.

In August 2023, he barred unauthorised officials from attending United Nations General Assembly meetings and reduced delegations on foreign trips from 50 to 20 officials and 25 for local trips.

He also limited the Vice President’s entourage to five officials for foreign trips and 15 for local ones.

These measures, he said, were part of a broader effort by the federal government to cut down on expenses in line with the nation’s current economic realities.
Speaking on the development, .a development expert, Dr. Ayoola Sinu told reporters that ” though belated, we should still appreciate it that finally Tinubu did the needful to cut the cost of governance, but the measures are not deep enough.”

Credit: NATIONALWAVES