“It will take the next two months before ministers can come on board. Bringing them in now may disrupt the clean-up going on. So, Nigerians just have to be patient.”

This was Garba Shehu, presidential spokesman, speaking to Reuters on July 1, 2015 on the hold-up in appointing ministers. He said the president was taking his time to assemble a team of “credible and competent” Nigerians.

But after six months of suspense and wearisome wait, some persons of blemished character and of inchoate competence still got hoisted into the cabinet. What a pathos-inducing denouement that was?

As a matter of fact, reinforcing failure is solving a problem with the same washed-out tools, methods and liveware. A president is as good as his cabinet; this is the reason competence must supersede every other value item in the check-list.

It has been 14 days since the inauguration of the second Buhari administration, and it is shaping up to be the sophomore of a prosaic interlude charged with a numbing suspense.

Really, I think this uneasy wait could be the result of intense lobbying in “high places” or a consequence of ambivalence in making that important decision of appointing persons to the cabinet by President Buhari. And there is the speculation that most of the “arid hands” may return because they are angling and sparing no quarter in scheming to have another round at retailed power.

Read more: https://thebelltimesng.com/2019/06/15/buharis-cabinet-to-be-or-not-to-be-by-fredrick-nwabufo/