Buhari’s cabinet, pursuit of power and the crumbling administration

The way cabinet members of the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration are gradually abandoning their primary duties for selfish political ambition really calls for worry and must be addressed.

It is the final lap of an eight-year race, a time when the president, his vice and all cabinet members are supposed to be commissioning major projects, signing bills into law, counting their physical achievements and even doing more work to ensure they leave an indelible mark and their names etched in the good books of history, they have rather jumped ship, abandoned their public shop and headed for a solo trip.

Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, Minister of Labour Chris Ngige, Minister of State for Education Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, Minister of Interior Rauf Aregbesola, Minister of Transportation Rotimi Amaechi, and Minister of Justice Abubakar Malami have all divided their attention from their primary place of duty to their personal political pursuit (PPP).

With a whole year still left on their tenure and lots of work still left to do, they have abandoned the running of the country for selfish ambition, leaving the economy, government, security and the whole system in a state of a quagmire, and forcing people to ask why don’t they just resign and face their PPP?

Section 3(i) of the APC Guidelines for the Nomination of Candidates for the 2023 General Elections says: “No political appointee at any level shall be a voting delegate or be voted for the purpose of the nomination of candidates.” The guidelines added that “any political office holder interested in contesting for an elective office shall leave Office 30 days prior to the date of election or party primary for the office sought”.

The APC primary has been scheduled to hold from Monday, May 30, to Wednesday, June 1, which is less than one month from this publication, but the likes of Ngige and Nwajiuba have publicly told Nigerians to their faces that they will not resign. In fact, they said it in a way that they do not care whose ox is gored as they are bent on holding on to their appointments while also going through the rigours of a political campaign.

Since February 14, 2022, a day known globally as love day, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has been on strike. For almost three months now, Ngige and Nwajiuba have failed to fulfil their side of the negotiation with ASUU. But these people are so full of themselves believing that they are morally and professionally qualified to be the President of Nigeria. What an irony and misplacement of priority.

Students are there roaming the streets and most of them increasingly engaging in crimes. Yahoo Yahoo is on the rise, ritual killings are not reducing, while some female students are getting increasingly recruited into hookup, or what you call modern-day prostitution. If they are not doing that, they are either being raped, falling victim to ritualists, or living in the house of one boyfriend somewhere who treats them as slaves.

In the last three years, no fewer than 10 industrial actions have been held in various bodies under the watch of Ngige. In September 2020, the Joint Health Workers Union of Nigeria (JOHESU) embarked on a strike due to the failure of the government to pay their Covid-19 hazard allowance. Three months earlier, the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) went on strike in June but returned to work after the intervention of the speaker of the house of representatives. The weird thing that led to the one-week industrial action right in the middle of Covid-19 was the demand for the provision of personal protective equipment (PPE) to hospitals. The Nigerian health ministry did not provide protection for its health workers but expected them to work during a global pandemic. I know it sounds abnormal, it actually is.

In August 2021, the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) embarked on its fourth strike within one year. They claimed that the government hadn’t implemented a memorandum of understanding that had been agreed upon following previous strikes in 2020 and 2021. That strike led to the death of my cousin in Abuja. Yet, Ngige, a medical doctor by profession, sees himself as suitable to lead Nigeria. Lol (laugh out loud).

What about strikes by maritime workers in Apapa, Lagos and some others too numerous to mention? But despite the struggle in the little task given to him, Ngige thinks highly of himself, believing he is fit and deserves to take a bigger role like that of the president.

Some times ago, there were pictures and videos of multiple brand new branded campaign vehicles of the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele. In fact, it was even rumoured that he took some top personalities in business and politics to Jamaica to celebrate his 60th birthday and used the opportunity to announce his ambition of becoming the next president.

It is good that Emefiele has not, or did not declare his intention publicly, to contest for president come 2023. It is good that he buried that idea in his stomach, otherwise I would have reminded him of how much the exchange rate of naira to the dollar was when he took over and how much it is now. I would have asked him what impact has the e-naira wallet made in the lives of Nigerians since its launch on October 25, 2021. I would have asked him to explain how the display of rice and maize pyramids in Abuja brought food to the table of Nigerians.

President Buhari, who claims to be fighting corruption, or who lured Nigerians with the inept promise of bringing corruption to the barest minimum, is looking away from the flamboyant display of public wealth by these insatiable politicians in his cabinet.

Only recently, reports were rife of attorney-general of the federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami, distributing Prado jeeps, Lexus SUVs, Mercedes Benz GLK and other exotic cars, to top officials in his state in a bid to win the 2023 governorship race in Kebbi state. His aide Umar Gwandu later claimed the expensive vehicles were donated by his friends and associates to long term workers of his Khadimiyya Foundation.

Malami’s friends and associates, as it were, did not find a better time to make their donations, or the long term workers of his foundation did not deserve such a gesture not until now. Are the so-called friends and associates telling us that top on the priority list of needs of those long term workers, is exotic Prado jeep and Mercedes Benz? What for really? In a country where over a hundred million citizens are wallowing in poverty and can barely afford a two-square meal? Or in the north, where residents are mostly hit by poverty? I understand this political game, and I am not a fool.

Those still serving in this government are brandishing wealth just anyhow with recklessness and carelessness for their PPP, while most Nigerians are left to continue their partnership with suffering. Are Nigerians supposed to put their lives on pause for the next year? Are university students going to sit at home and be rendered redundant for the next year because politicians are pursuing their personal goals? We all know the implication of all these.

President Buhari’s administration is crumbling, his cabinet members have left their duty posts. This is the time when the treasury gets looted the most because nobody is watching, we just survived the damage contaminated fuel did to us because nobody was watching, we just lost over 100 citizens in an illegal refinery explosion in Imo state because nobody was watching.