It is not and should not be business-as-usual.
As Nigerians cheerfully look forward to a new dawn from May 29, 2015, incidentally my very special birthday, hopes are in high gear regarding expectations from the new federal government and its leader, Muhammadu Leko Buhari. Leko is Idowu in Yoruba, which is a child born after twins!
One of the greatest problems that usually confront Nigerian elected leaders is how to satisfy the litany of unreasonable demands from their followers, supporters and political party workers. Success, they say, has many fathers while failure always is an orphan. Now that Buhari has convincingly won the presidency, all manners of people are beating their chests that but for them Buhari would have repeated his record of failures at the presidential polls. The blunt truth is that Buhari was a man whose time has come! Nigeria recognises and appreciates the huge strategic contributions of all those who desired change and worked hard to actualise it, but Buhari was clearly the symbol, and all efforts would have come to naught without that anointed towering symbol.
Now is the time for serious business. Buhari should be allowed to lead and translate his passion to rescue Nigeria to play out itself. The era of huge government is over. Nigeria has suffered a lot under the weight of hundreds of thousands of dead woods who live entirely on politics. Abuja carries unwieldy load on its head. State governments, which in the main are largely unviable, also bear burdens too large and too heavy for their thin necks.
For starters, Buhari’s government should not allow itself to bear the burden of large retinue of ministers. The United States of America, the third largest country by size in the world and fourth largest in population, does not have a half of the number of cabinet members Nigeria parades. The era of minister of state, minister in the ministry, and other meaningless titles should not be allowed to rear its head in the new cabinet to be put together by Buhari.
Nigeria should have a maximum of 25 ministers made up of four ministers from each geo-political zone and one from Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja. In the same vein, all states of the federation should have a maximum of 10 commissioners – three from each senatorial zone and the additional one representing the youths of each of the states.
Ministerial or commissionership appointment should not be just ‘job for the boys/girls’. Ministers and commissioners must be tested and trusted technocrats who have their first verifiable addresses. In other words, they must be citizens who are gainfully employed in their fields of human endeavour and who would see appointments into the cabinet as a call to duty and sacrifice for the fatherland.
The era of making a carpenter the Minister of Aviation or a fashion designer the Minister of Education should be over for ever. It should be square pegs in square holes.
The federal government has no business with agriculture, or primary and secondary education. Federal government’s involvement with tertiary education should merely be at national policy level.
What is the business of a serious federal government with the so-called State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) or nomadic education? Most of the functions the federal government had appropriated to itself must now be returned to the states and local governments.
The legislature has been a great drain on the economy. And this was made possible by the executive which believed it must be in the good books of the legislative arm to have its excesses and illegalities overlooked. That era is gone. Nigerians must know how much a legislator earns per month.
No legislator, apart from the Senate president and House of Representatives Speaker should earn more than a judge of the high court, a professor or a permanent secretary.
Legislators have been allowed by past executives to make nonsense of our value system by the ridiculous amount of largess thrown at their feet.
Constituency allowance should be discontinued immediately. Legislators are not contractors and they do not superintend over ministries of works. Legislators should live entirely on their salaries, and all the mouth-watering allowances hitherto given to them more as inducements should be stopped.
The judiciary must have their independence restored. Their pay must come directly to them and not at the discretion of the president or governors.
The amount of money frittered away in the name of running governments is too much for comfort. And Nigerians must begin to query the rationale behind allocating funds to local government chair persons’ spouses or a councillor retaining a special adviser.
This new government of change, which Nigerians prayed and worked hard to put in place, must be conscious of the enormous expectations of the masses. All the money meant to provide infrastructure, to provide industries, to provide employment opportunities and the almighty electric power had been showered on the tiny cabal ruling us. We are happy to note that the highly incorruptible Buhari will put an end to the roguery that had polluted the Nigerian political space.
Government must also do a critical appraisal of all the agencies and parastatals of government at both federal and state levels. Constituting a board of 40 directors is sheer madness. Agencies like the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and the National Population Commission (NPC) need not governing board in addition to state directors or commissioners of the relevant bodies. And the practice of appointing a barber to chair the governing council of a specialist outfit like the psychiatric hospital should be immediately discontinued.
The new federal government is a serious government. And it must remain so if it intends to continue to enjoy the confidence and support of the masses.
And this government must not allow itself to be high-jacked as many federal governments in the past were high-jacked by naira-chewing moguls and the hottest of pants in town!
