The controversy surrounding the delayed announcement of cabinet ministers by President Muhammadu Buhari was further exacerbated by the names that eventually made the list. To say that most commentators expressed considerable dissatisfaction over the ages and political pedigrees of some of the nominees is to put it quite mildly.
Others were bewildered about the turn of event especially against the backdrop of the President’s earlier hint that he would be bringing in people of utmost integrity. And since it is almost impossible in this clime to go into government without soiling one’s curriculum vitae, it then came to them as a rude shock that most of the eventual nominees were the same old faces that they have always associated with government and with all its negative connotations.
My candid take is that there was not much the President could have done to change the outcome of the process in view of the constitutional and cultural environments that he had to navigate. Yes, he is the boss but the reality is that he is tightly encumbered by the constitution, a condition sine qua non for legitimate stewardship under the Rule of Law. I think it is good time to educate ourselves a little bit about certain aspects of the president’s constitutional prerogative to hire and fire.
It is really a matter of constitutional convention and, in particular, the need to spread patronage around that ministers are appointed as there is no legal or policy imperatives to appoint them.
Yet, our Constitution makes provisions for “ministers and other aides” just to make the business of the executive more efficient and perhaps more acceptable to the generality of the people, especially in a typical democracy in which the notion of the people governing themselves is a cardinal principle.
We have this peculiar situation in Nigeria, which, no doubt, is a product of our history, in which the constitution creates the office of President and vests it with “executive powers” but curiously goes ahead to curtail the essential elements of those powers vis-à-vis the appointment of his aides, including ministers.
For a start, while it is the prerogative of the President to appoint his ministers, he does not appear to have so much say about the number of ministers to be so appointed. He is expected to appoint a minister from each of the states of the federation. That presupposes that he must have as many as 36 ministers whether or not he really needs them.
At the end of the day, we are faced with a situation in which a president is made to operate with a motley crowd he hardly knows their competences and characters or those that he actually knows about their obvious limitations but could not exclude from his cabinet due to the overwhelming influence of the party or what the Americans call “Special Interests” who ultimately capture the state and its governing policies for their selfish ends.
There is no doubt that party affiliation and constituency loyalty are some of the key determinants of who become ministers in political systems that feed on patronage and cronyism. But there is the notable exception that is often made for the presidential system of government, the type that we are supposed to be operating, which is that every president is personally responsible for the choice of his ministers for the simple reason that it is his own headache whether or not they perform in their offices because the buck, as they say, stops at his desk.
From our discussions so far, certain contradictions as far as the appointment of ministers within the Nigerian variant of the presidential system are already noticeable.
First, contrary to universal practice, the Nigerian president does not enjoy absolute control over the choice of his ministers.
Second, the president is clearly hamstrung as far as determining the size of his cabinet is concerned as political appointments are constitutionally bound to comply with the requirements of federal character.
Third, the President could indeed carry on exercising his executive powers all by himself for as long as possible without the support of ministers (Yar’ Adua didn’t have ministers for more than 2months after inauguration) even though it is also a fact that at some point he would be faced with serious challenges from those who expect him to appoint their loyalists as a matter of patronage.
Particularly in Nigeria where ministers are the chief accounting officers of their ministries, the enormous possibilities that exist for self-enrichment have in the past pushed up the price-tag for ministerial slots.
The only way out is usually to create a plethora of sinecure political offices that would then accommodate the multitude thus left out. Another way to go around it is for the President to increase the turnover rate of his ministerial appointees so that as many people as possible would ultimately have the chance for a taste of the ministerial largesse. That however is a sure way to ruin the nation quickly.
The only difference now is that the previous liberty of corrupt public officers to plunder unabated would be somehow curtailed, first, by Buhari’s personal disposition to material discipline and, second, by the lean economy as there is not much in the kitty, thus making public offices less attractive to those who only go in just to “eat.”
It is indeed incongruous that a president cannot by himself alone appoint his ministers or determine their numbers. Where then are the fabled presidential powers to “hire and fire”? Because he must appoint from all the states and zones, he is forced to abandon obvious quality materials for people of dubious pedigree whose only qualifications are that they are representing some states and zones through the agencies of some vested interests. It is like trying to constitute the national football team on the basis of federal character — a sure recipe for disaster.
Senate screening which is an integral part of the appointment process, its microscopic character usually dreaded in other climes, has turned out to be a nauseating circus show usually put up to deflect the attention of the public from the partisan character of political appointments — sheer patronage disbursement. Once special interests have zeroed in on a nominee, the Senate is left with no power but to simply rubber-stamp the list: powerful candidates by tradition merely take their bows and go! Anyone who has ever watched the US Senate screen would-be appointees would note the difference between two approaches.
In the circumstance, PMB could not completely achieve his avowed goal of a lean cabinet. These are realities that we must bear in mind while evaluating governments in Nigeria. As long as the Constitution remains the same, Nigerian Presidents shall continue to be saddled with ministers that they really don’t need or want.
The fact that ministers are not necessarily appointed on the basis of their individual competences must be one of the undeniable explanations as to why we have been failing woefully in public governance.
I concede that without the constitutional prescription of federal character, a myopically nepotistic president could go ahead to appoint only his kinsmen, pals and cronies who may be the most incompetent hands in the land. It is probably to avoid such a calamity that the current constitutional restraining clause was grafted to the erstwhile powers of the President to “hire and fire.”
Elsewhere, the understanding is always that even if a president decides to appoint only his brothers and sisters as ministers, as President Kennedy once did, he would only be appointing persons in possession of CVs that cannot be faulted in any material way.
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