1. POWER, WORKS & HOUSING: Much of the social media hubbub has been on how Fashola is now a ‘Super-Minister’, combining three ‘PLUM’ Ministries. That is disturbing enough. But even more disturbing is finding that these three portfolios are being combined at a time when we have much work to do in those areas, such that, at least two of them – Power and Works – ought to be declared areas of national emergency. I don’t envy Governor Fashola, because performance in one of those portfolios should not excuse a failure in the others. Besides, one of the portfolios, Housing, will not count as one of Fashola’s strong points in his 8years of Lagos governorship, the Jakande era of 35years ago till being the reference point in a successful mass housing policy in the city.

2. INFORMATION, COMMUNICATIONS, SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY: I wonder why successive governments continually fail to see the natural fit of these 3 portfolios. When you adjust for the misnomer of reducing the Information portfolio into a glorified propaganda spin-booth (you don’t need more than an information unit in the cabinet for that purpose, really), the Ministry in charge of broadcast and the influential Nigerian film industry ought to fit naturally with the ones overseeing communications and technology generally. Listening to the new Information Minister, Lai Mohammed this evening, he still appears to set much store on his responsibility as the information vanguard for Government. We don’t need a Ministry, or cabinet-level role for this. The new Minister needs to understand the developmental role of that portfolio, that will give the clout to our broadcast and film industries commensurate to their contributions to the economy and strategic importance to our national development. President Buhari certainly lost the opportunity to save the cost of two Minister here!

MINISTERIES TO WATCH
3. DIVERSIFYING THE ECONOMY: The ministries to watch here are (i) Agriculture, (ii) Solid Minerals and (iii) Industry, Trade & Investment. Luckily for the new Ministers, they have the works of a few visionary predecessors to look at. In the case of Chief Ogbe, the Akinwunmi Adesina, and in the case of Kayode Fayemi, the work that Oby Ezekwezili was beginning to do in that Ministry before she left in 2007. Okey Enelamah will need, not just to continue with his predecessor, Segun Aganga’s work in resurrecting our traditional industries starting with the automotive industry (I expect Enelamah to see how the textiles districts of Kano and Ikeja, leather and footwear in Aba, etc, can be resurrected) his experience in the local PE/VC sector should also help him understand the support that emerging industries need- for example, working with his colleagues in Communications, Science and Technology to create supporting ecosystem for the technology start-up sector, and the ever-promising but underachieving creative industry.

4. MAKING A DIFFERENCE: Adamu Adamu has the opportunity to make the most difference in a fundamental way. In the Education portfolio, he has to open two fronts in his battle- (i) the issue of basic access in Northern Nigeria and (ii) overall reform for quality and content everywhere. Performance in the first is the easier and quicker to measure, but seeing how almost perennially intractable it has become, would be tasking nonetheless. A number of targets have been missed in closing the education gap between the regions with substantial Federal funding (the UBE of the 1970s and the soon-to-close MDGs). So merely throwing more money at it will almost certainly be to little avail. The problem, at its root, is cultural. Perhaps, working with the emerging political and cultural leadership of the region (from Emir Lamido Sanusi to Governor El Rufai), a new social attitude to education could be fashioned in that region that guarantees new investments and helps to close that gap at secondary school level within the next decade.

AND SORRY, WHO HAS THE ‘CULTURE’ PORTFOLIO?

Probably, It’s the Ministry of AgriCULTURE

-Deji Toye via Starttells
http://starttells.com/2015/11/15/preliminary-thoughts-on-the-new-cabinet-merger-of-the-ministries/