₦airaland Forum

At last after a very long wait the names of the key figures in Baba Buhari's cabinet was released. Before now, Nigerians were practically begging the present administration to appoint principal officers but the president was calm. APC supporters took to their pens and told Nigerians that the man is being careful to choose the best and incorruptible from the lot.
Nigerians were alarmed when the likes of Adamu Adamu, Amaechi, Buhari, Ngige, Audu Ogbe, Adeosun, etc made the list. People were like, "Where are the saints"?
Time went on for Nigerias to enjoy the new cabinet, but every one of them started to give excuses. The firs we suffered was TSA, followed by long queues in the banks for BVN. The next was SIM card registration and now we have fuel disaster.

In my thinking, I expected the saints that were christened "Square pegs in square holes" to at least restore the confidence the general publics reposed on them to at least do something to deliver their respective ministries.

EFCC, DSS, the Army, Civil Defence, the Judiciary, Custom, the Police, et al, went beserk to make Baba Buhari see them as his partners in progress while trying to destroy his government gradually. They arrested and interrogated so many people, many of them political oponents of this administration. Nigerians cried!

The case against EFCC and their past leader Lamurde is not being mentioned again. Amaechi is now a saint. Ngige usurped the governor's seat in Anambra State but is walking shoulder high today as if nothing happened. Fashola got so many Nigerians blinking their eyes intermitently as if to say, "What a shame!" The minister of petroleum does not know what is happening in the oil industry, only the junior Kachikwu is being touted to explain why.

On that fateful Wednesday when the names of would-be ministers were announced, Nigerians jubilated. But up till now, APC government is still blaming past administration for the same reason Nigerians voted them to power. Are you sure these people know the road at all?

Baba Buhari have virtually toured all the coubtries of the world and yet no solution in sight. All the promises these people are giving him have not been translated to reality and Baba is still travelling. Will America, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, China, Equitorial Guinea, Niger, Chad, Cameroon, UAE, etc govern Nigeria for us? How many of these countries did we vote for as president if not Buhari? Yet the technically selected ministers are there watching like zombie while things spoil.

I remember that the military always go with a blueprint of activities before they plot coup. On ascension of office, you see them dish out a plan of action, name administrators/governors, portfolios for their point men/women. But Baba Buhari as a military man did not learn that from training. And a politician, after campaining to win election, has no blueprint. He named his ministers five to six months after he was sworn in as president. He succeeded in marshalling out a plattoon of rag-tag ministerial army who cannot deliver.

Let's take a look at Baba Buhari's principal ministers:

– Kemi Adeosun (finance) – The 48-year-old was born and raised in London, where she studied economics and public financial management, going on to become a senior manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers. She was a trained accountant, who she was until recently finance commissioner in the southwest Nigerian state of Ogun, where she was to have turned around public finances.

Before that she was managing director at Nigerian investment bank Chapel Hill Denham, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Error: She lacks the high profile of her predecessor, former World Bank executive Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. Baba Buhari hired her because she was said to be a reformist and high on integrity.

– Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu (petroleum resources) – Kachikwu, 58, was appointed in August as the group managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and immediately tasked with overhauling the firm.

The lawyer and former ExxonMobil executive was seen as a shoe-in for the junior oil minister’s post after Buhari announced he would take personal charge of the oil portfolio. He has already ordered a forensic audit of the NNPC accounts and the publication of oil receipts. He has pledged to bring transparency and accountability to the organization.

Error: Kachikwu should have resigned his post as the Group Managing Director of NNPC and be made the substantive Minister of Petroleum. We voted Baba Buhari as the President not as a Minister! Can you see why fuel scarcity will continue wuthout remedy? A novice is at the helm!!!!


– Muhammad Mansur Dan-Ali (defence) –
Retired Brigadier-General Muhammad Mansur Dan-Ali, from Zamfara state in northwest Nigeria, is a career soldier who rose through the ranks to hold several posts, including artillery commander.

The 56-year-old also commanded a Nigerian battalion as part of a UN mission in Sudan as well as being an instructor at the Nigerian Defence Academy in Abuja.

Dan-Ali, who retired from military service in 2013, takes over the defence portfolio as troops seek to rout Boko Haram by year end.

Six years of Islamist violence has left at least 17,000 dead in Nigeria’s northeast and made more than 2.5 million people homeless, while under the previous administration military morale was dented.

Error: This man bowed out of service and should be allowed to rest. This is one of the errors of past administrations that left Nigeria where she is today. Let someone in active service take his position!


– Abdulrahman Dambazau (interior) - Retired Lieutenant-General Abdulrahman Bello Dambazau, 61, was chief of army staff under former president Umaru Yar’Adua from 2008 to 2010 and had been tipped for the defence portfolio.

But the US-trained former soldier, who holds degrees in criminal justice, international relations and criminology can bring a wealth of expertise and experience to the role.

He was a part-time criminology lecturer at the law faculty of Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Kaduna, and has authored several books both on the military and criminal law.

Dambazau was on active service when Buhari was military ruler in the 1980s and headed the security committee of the now-defunct Congress for Progressive Change when Buhari was its presidential candidate in 2011.

He was also head of intelligence and security for the All Progressives Congress (APC), which now governs Nigeria at federal level.

Error: Another retired general whose appointment is for political settlement. Though he was a fine soldier during his time but highly partisan. He cannot deliver any good thing to Nigerians. Let a serving general take the post.


– Geoffrey Onyeama (foreign affairs) –
The 59-year-old graduated in political science from Columbia University in New York in 1977, and also has degrees in law from the London School of Economics and from Cambridge.

Between 1986 and 1996, Onyeama, a qualified barrister in Britain and Nigeria, was an intellectual property specialist who has worked extensively with the United Nations on development in Africa.

Error: This man wasted all his years overseas and does not have knowledge of Nigerian pilitical climate. He cannot deliver. He will rather sell Nigerians abroad very cheap. He is the brain behind Baba Buhari's constant trips abroad. He qualified only in making Buhari a runnaway president of Nigeria.

This is truly my concern for Nigeria at the moment. Add yours...

After taking that long to appoint this ministers, they can't even serve us well.

Flexherbal:
After taking that long to appoint this ministers, they can't even serve us well.

Only God will save all His children in Nigeria!