17 Oct 2008 |
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What is V. P. Goodluck doing? By Reuben Abati THE story is so damning it ought to have attracted prompt denials and protests. But 72 hours later, there has been no official reaction to it. I refer to the front page story in The Daily Trust of Tuesday, October 14, wherein it is alleged that President Umaru Yar'Adua has banned most of his ministers from coming to the Villa to see him. Exempted from this directive, which was leaked by sources inside the Villa, says The Daily Trust are ministers whose portfolios are considered central to the seven-point agenda: Foreign Affairs, Federal Capital Territory, Justice, Defence, and Finance. The story titled "Ministers barred - Yar'Adua restricts their access to him" reads in part: President Yar'Adua has restricted access to him by ministers because of what Presidency sources said was the abuse of the privilege by many ministers. Under an order issued last week, only six ministers can have direct access to the President while the remaining 36 would have to channel all communications through the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Mahmud Yayale Ahmed, reliable sources said. ... Presidency sources said the new presidential engagement policy was informed by the frivolous visits of some ministers to the Presidential Villa. According to our sources "some ministers are in the habit of visiting the Villa just for gossips and trivial matters". The treatment of this particular story by The Daily Trust is instructive. There is a repeated reference to "our sources", "Presidency sources" and "reliable sources". It is either this story was deliberately leaked, or the so-called oath of secrecy administered recently by the Presidency is not working. "Reliable Presidency sources" leaking stories to newspapers must think nothing of the oath of secrecy. But what is clearly underlined here is a brewing crisis within the Federal Cabinet, here is also a comment on the governance process in Nigeria, even beyond the Presidency. Nigerians should be alarmed that at a time when the Nigerian Stock Market is failing, Federal Ministers are said to be more interested in seeing the President for "gossips and trivial matters". Governments all over the world are introducing measures to address the challenges of the corrosive meltdown of global capitalism, and all our ministers can do is gossip and make frivolous visits? The price of crude oil is crashing, so badly that the Federal Government is now forced to reconsider the benchmark of $62.5 per barrel earlier used in calculating the 2009 budget, and some Ministers are said to be more interested in "trivial matters?" Or could it be that the Daily Trust story was deliberately leaked to provide further justification for the cabinet reshuffle which the Presidency continues to talk about and has done nothing about? Or a way of keeping ministers away, who apparently under pressure to seek re-appointment could have been laying siege on the President's office to ingratiate themselves to him? When did the President suddenly notice that most of his ministers are interested only in "gossip and trivial matters"? If this is a recent development, then the President should accept the blame for this. On May 29, the President had broached the subject of a likely cabinet reshuffle. With the announcement of a new Federal Government administrative structure last month, it was further clear that a cabinet reshuffle was inevitable. By refusing to act promptly and decisively on this matter, the president has unwittingly encouraged rumour-mongering and what "the reliable Presidency sources" quoted by the Daily Trust referred to as "gossips and trivial matters". Speculations, and rumour-mongering about the likely composition of the Federal Cabinet have become a full-time engagement for all kinds of interested parties. In the Niger Delta, there has even developed a pointless debate over who is more of a Niger Deltan than the other, and hence more deserving of the position of the Niger Delta Minister. The immediate effect of President Yar'Adua's slow handling of appointments to the Federal Executive Council is that the Federal Government is now at a standstill. Since May, Federal Ministers have been placed in a state of unnerving suspense. They are unable to function because they are not too sure whether they will be retained or not. Quality energy is therefore spent on the lobbying of influential persons to help "talk to the President". In the ministries, not much commitment can be expected from ordinarily distracted civil servants who are already looking past the incumbent minister, to the future. If the gossips, and the obsession with trivial matters are beginning to bother him, Mr. President should act firmly and announce his long- promised new team. It is not a good sign that there are too many abandoned tasks on the President's desk. The Ministry of Health for example, has not had a substantive minister since the N300 million scandal that led to the exit of former Minister of Health, Adenike Grange and her Minister of State. Nobody has been in charge of the Ministry of Defence since Yayale Ahmed became Secretary to the Federal Government. The boards of government parastatals, and the Governing Councils of government- owned educational institutions were dissolved more than a year ago. It is about time President Yar'Adua reconstituted those boards and councils. His government has been asleep for so long - it needs a shot in the arm, through the injection of fresh blood. When a new Federal team is composed, we would expect that the President, his ministers, and advisers would be able to forge such a beneficial working relationship that would not be dominated by "gossip, trivial matters, and frivolous visits". Ministers should be able to have access to the President whenever they need to, especially where matters of state are involved. The problems that need to be addressed, in the light of valuable time that has been lost, require a higher level of teamwork and engagement. Persons who would occupy the important position of Minister of the Federal Republic also ought to be men and women of discernment who should know better than to distract the President with "gossips and trivial matters". However, the revelation that there is a growing harvest of "gossips and trivial matters" at the highest level of government should not be surprising. This is the nature and culture of governance at all levels in Nigeria, and it is probably worse at the state levels. Close watchers of the Nigerian Presidency would recall that under former President Olusegun Obasanjo, ministers paid quality attention to trivia, for what is otherwise classified as trivia is a major vehicle of intra-governmental relations. The former President used to attend early morning devotion in the Aso Villa Chapel. Ministers, Special Advisers, Senior government officials, including Moslems, went to that Chapel, dutifully every morning, not to worship God, but so they could be noticed by the President. The burlesque in that Chapel was all about self-positioning. The former President obviously did not object to "frivolous visits, gossips and trivial matters". But it was worse in the states. Getting face-time with the boss is part of the game of survival in Nigerian politics. Valuable time that should be spent on productive ventures is devoted to uttering sweet-nothings into the ears of the boss. In many states, even now, when Commissioners wake up in the morning; their first port of call is the Governor's lodge. They follow the Governor about, from sun-up to sun-down, they tell him stories they think he would love to hear, they report gossips about other politicians, malign likely competitors, ingratiate themselves, and few indeed are those governors who refuse to be part of this game of sycophancy. Most commissioners hang around the living rooms of their Governors. They retire when the Governor goes to bed, only to resume the same routine the following day. This established conduct and system of public service is an act of treachery against long-suffering Nigerian people. If this is what President Yar'Adua seems to be rejecting, he should prove that he means business through increased productivity. The office of the SGF is the administrative clearing-house for the Federal Government, and the occupier of the office also acts as adviser to the President. But if ministers cannot see the President, why can't they be directed to the Vice President? When Alh. Baba Gana Kingibe was the SGF, it was generally argued that he was an ambitious man who had made himself more powerful than the Vice President, and that he was preparing the future for his own Presidential ambition. Kingibe's exit was widely hailed. But this has not suddenly made the Vice President more influential. It'd appear that in the Yar'Adua administration, there is a deliberate attempt to marginalize the office of the Vice President. Perhaps President Yar'Adua has been advised not to make the kind of mistake that President Obasanjo made. Until former Vice President Atiku Abubakar fell out with his boss around 2003, he was in charge of the National Economic Council, the country's privatization process, and the Obasanjo campaign. He was a prominent man of power. Nobody knows what Goodluck Jonathan is in charge of. Is he happy as Vice President? In the past three months, President Yar'Adua has been represented at virtually every event by a minister. These days, he mostly attends events that take place in the Presidential Villa. And when he delegates his other responsibilities, the Vice President is ignored. The relationship between the President and Vice President, and between Governors and their Deputies in the states was one of the major issues during the period: 1999 - 2007. In Lagos, Adamawa, Plateau, Abia, Oyo, Anambra, and Akwa Ibom states, Governors and their Deputies played the politics of discord, and in every case, the Deputy was either impeached by a compromised House of Assembly or forced to resign. The problem persists, even if in some states, both Governor and Deputy relate as partners, and two examples stand out - the Oyinlola/Obada team in Osun, and the Fashola/Sosan team in Lagos, with Sosan doubling as the Commissioner for Education: Constitutional amendment is required to properly define the functions of a Vice President and Deputy governor. The 1999 Constitution creates the two positions (Ss 141, and 186 respectively), and defines the joint mandate that the occupiers exercise with their principals - the President, and the Governor, but essentially a Vice President, or a Deputy governor in Nigeria's political arrangement is a spare tyre and a mere shadow. He or she can only function at the pleasure of the boss. Nowhere in the 1999 Constitution is any function expressly assigned to the Vice President. If he shows too much enthusiasm, he is immediately accused of being too ambitious. The political party system is even unkind to the Deputy in Nigerian politics. In the United States, the Vice President is also the President of the Senate, even if until the 25th Amendment, the position was significantly marginal. F.D. Roosevelt's Deputy, John Garner once remarked that the position "wasn't worth a pitcher of warm piss". John Adams, the first U.S. Vice President dismissed it as "the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived". The role of the Vice President and the Deputy Governor deserves the attention of the Constitution Review Committee in the National Assembly.
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