With the reassurance by His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari GCFR to Nigerians that he would appoint only persons well known to him into his NEXT LEVEL Cabinet and following his proclamation to inaugurate the Cabinet on 21st August, 2019, one is compelled to ask some pertinent national questions.
First, is this the best team Mr. President can assemble? If yes, how then can four people facing corruption charges with the EFCC be onthis list? Are these persons to be presumed innocent? Otherwise, where is the anti-corruption of buzz talk? Though we hear that some of them bought their ways with huge funds into the cabinet in order to escape the claws of the EFCC, is Mr. President fully aware of this, since he said those are people well known to him? Besides, there are some former governors on the list whose performances were adjudged to be so awful. How can the integrity of the Cabinet be justified?
Secondly, how about ther umors that heavy bribes were extorted from the nominees by a cabal in the Villa? Are these rumors to be discounted with the wave of the hand? Of peculiar interest is the case of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. This is a Ministry whose activities and successes had been so manifest and trumpeted to the whole world by no less a person than Mr. President himself. AMinistry which in the words of Senator Ben Bruce “…has expelled foreign rice from the Nigerian Market.”A ministry whose efforts has resulted in an import saving of $24bn in the last three and half years. A Ministry whose activities in the rural areas have uplifted rural farmers, so high that they overwhelmingly delivered Mr. President in the 2nd term as against the refusal of the elites in the city to vote for him. A Ministry which has become the highest employer of labour. A Ministry that took Nigeria out of recession. How then can Mr. President explain the return of 12 other Ex-Ministers while ignoring the sterling performance put up by that of Agriculture and Rural Development – Chief Audu Ogbeh and his team. Are we to presume that since the cabinet appointment were rumored to be open bazaar, Chief Ogbeh had no money or was unwilling to buy his seat back or is it that the achievements listed above got suddenly written off records? What is even more worrisome is the long-term message that this development is sending to the generation after us.
And that message is that whoever is appointed to high Office in this country should concentrate on robbing the treasury and should not apply himself assiduously to the good and progress of the Nigerian society. This development is sending a signal that those who work hard like Chief Audu Ogbeh and his colleagues in the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development are fools, fit only for public embarrassment and rejection. With this,how does this Anti-corruption Administration and Regime of Change hope to convince Nigerians that there is any more to their claims than mere sloganeering?
Thirdly, from the list, who will occupy the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development? What will happen to the idea of continuity? Should everything slide back to where it was so that we return to the era of importation as well as face eminent food shortage?We are all watching and its quite obvious that we may be heading for a disaster again. Today, no Nigerian can talk of food shortage, with far so much food in the market. They may not be enough cash to purchase, but food prices are definitely in their lowest pricing in recent years. Agriculture has acquired a new respectability and is attracting the young and old, rich and poor. The next phase from what we learnt is to be exporting agriculture, through the revival of strategic crops like cocoa, coffee, coconuts, cashew, cotton, bananas etc. as well as value addition through Agro-industries. This will mean more and more jobs in rural and peril urban areas that will eventually solve the problems ofbanditry and criminality among youths.Where will all of these vanish to?Meanwhile, no body in the country seems to have any confidence that there are among the nominees any one known to have either interest in or perhaps passion for Agriculture without which no number of certificates can produce the results we have seen in the last three and half years.
Fourthly, why would serious national problems be sacrificed on the altar of tribal, ethnic and religious sentiment?Why are there two Ministers from states that contributed less to the campaign of Mr. President and just one from states that contributed more? We learnt from very reliable sources that the Cabinet is simply a Campaign Team of an individual warming up for the 2023 Presidential Election. This individual insists that his victory and that of the APC are so important that only “Real Politicians” who can deliver their States should make up the cabinet and that, some persons amongst whom is Chief Ogbeh are only technocrats and academicians who may not toe that line of thinking. So, this is simply the triumph of politics over reason and logic and national survival. And how can all these happen underMr. President in whom the nation has twice put her trust? Should the future ambition of an individual over run the several needs of a nation as big as Nigeria?
Finally, is it that Mr. President believes that we can afford a policy summersault in the midst of his administration? Is there a guarantee that whoever may be a Minister will ensure policy continuity? Where then is the wisdom in throwing the Administration’s finest policy into doubt and giving Nigerians such anxiety?
These questions beg for immediate answers in order to win the confidence of Nigerians for the NEXT LEVEL Administration, and also, Mr. President may wish to enlist a few more able hands to complement the Cabinet for the general good of the country. We hope that recourse to good reason and conscience will guide Mr. President in the course of these actions.
…Alh. Ibrahim Sani Mohammed is the Chairman of National Democratic Group
First, is this the best team Mr. President can assemble? If yes, how then can four people facing corruption charges with the EFCC be onthis list? Are these persons to be presumed innocent? Otherwise, where is the anti-corruption of buzz talk? Though we hear that some of them bought their ways with huge funds into the cabinet in order to escape the claws of the EFCC, is Mr. President fully aware of this, since he said those are people well known to him? Besides, there are some former governors on the list whose performances were adjudged to be so awful. How can the integrity of the Cabinet be justified?
Secondly, how about ther umors that heavy bribes were extorted from the nominees by a cabal in the Villa? Are these rumors to be discounted with the wave of the hand? Of peculiar interest is the case of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. This is a Ministry whose activities and successes had been so manifest and trumpeted to the whole world by no less a person than Mr. President himself. AMinistry which in the words of Senator Ben Bruce “…has expelled foreign rice from the Nigerian Market.”A ministry whose efforts has resulted in an import saving of $24bn in the last three and half years. A Ministry whose activities in the rural areas have uplifted rural farmers, so high that they overwhelmingly delivered Mr. President in the 2nd term as against the refusal of the elites in the city to vote for him. A Ministry which has become the highest employer of labour. A Ministry that took Nigeria out of recession. How then can Mr. President explain the return of 12 other Ex-Ministers while ignoring the sterling performance put up by that of Agriculture and Rural Development – Chief Audu Ogbeh and his team. Are we to presume that since the cabinet appointment were rumored to be open bazaar, Chief Ogbeh had no money or was unwilling to buy his seat back or is it that the achievements listed above got suddenly written off records? What is even more worrisome is the long-term message that this development is sending to the generation after us.
And that message is that whoever is appointed to high Office in this country should concentrate on robbing the treasury and should not apply himself assiduously to the good and progress of the Nigerian society. This development is sending a signal that those who work hard like Chief Audu Ogbeh and his colleagues in the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development are fools, fit only for public embarrassment and rejection. With this,how does this Anti-corruption Administration and Regime of Change hope to convince Nigerians that there is any more to their claims than mere sloganeering?
Thirdly, from the list, who will occupy the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development? What will happen to the idea of continuity? Should everything slide back to where it was so that we return to the era of importation as well as face eminent food shortage?We are all watching and its quite obvious that we may be heading for a disaster again. Today, no Nigerian can talk of food shortage, with far so much food in the market. They may not be enough cash to purchase, but food prices are definitely in their lowest pricing in recent years. Agriculture has acquired a new respectability and is attracting the young and old, rich and poor. The next phase from what we learnt is to be exporting agriculture, through the revival of strategic crops like cocoa, coffee, coconuts, cashew, cotton, bananas etc. as well as value addition through Agro-industries. This will mean more and more jobs in rural and peril urban areas that will eventually solve the problems ofbanditry and criminality among youths.Where will all of these vanish to?Meanwhile, no body in the country seems to have any confidence that there are among the nominees any one known to have either interest in or perhaps passion for Agriculture without which no number of certificates can produce the results we have seen in the last three and half years.
Fourthly, why would serious national problems be sacrificed on the altar of tribal, ethnic and religious sentiment?Why are there two Ministers from states that contributed less to the campaign of Mr. President and just one from states that contributed more? We learnt from very reliable sources that the Cabinet is simply a Campaign Team of an individual warming up for the 2023 Presidential Election. This individual insists that his victory and that of the APC are so important that only “Real Politicians” who can deliver their States should make up the cabinet and that, some persons amongst whom is Chief Ogbeh are only technocrats and academicians who may not toe that line of thinking. So, this is simply the triumph of politics over reason and logic and national survival. And how can all these happen underMr. President in whom the nation has twice put her trust? Should the future ambition of an individual over run the several needs of a nation as big as Nigeria?
Finally, is it that Mr. President believes that we can afford a policy summersault in the midst of his administration? Is there a guarantee that whoever may be a Minister will ensure policy continuity? Where then is the wisdom in throwing the Administration’s finest policy into doubt and giving Nigerians such anxiety?
These questions beg for immediate answers in order to win the confidence of Nigerians for the NEXT LEVEL Administration, and also, Mr. President may wish to enlist a few more able hands to complement the Cabinet for the general good of the country. We hope that recourse to good reason and conscience will guide Mr. President in the course of these actions.
…Alh. Ibrahim Sani Mohammed is the Chairman of National Democratic Group