It may be too early in the life of this administration to begin to
criticize it for being too slow. But Buhari must be careful not to fall into
the lethargic pit that swallowed the Umar Yar’Adua administration which took
over from Obasanjo in 2007.
THIS week makes it the fourth since the Muhammadu Buhari
administration was inaugurated amid much hope and high expectations. But while
the new president has taken a few significant steps locally and internationally
in his personal capacity, not much has been heard concerning those he would be
working with and depending on to drive his government’s agenda.
This has got Nigerians worried, and they’ve been left wondering
what reasons there are for the apparent slow pace in the appointment of
ministers and other key administrative staff. The president cannot see what the
anxiety might be about in spite of speculations, some of them wild and
apparently unfounded, about who might make his ministerial list or otherwise.
He had cause to address these concerns during a meeting with
Nigerians in South Africa in the course of his attendance of the African Union
summit in that country. That visit itself gave birth to yet another controversy
that nobody could have envisaged concerning the president’s age.
The president,
it was reported, had played down the high expectations of Nigerians about his
administration, warning that his age was bound to curtail his performance
level. This report which might not be unconnected to what Nigerians might have
begun to perceive as relative lethargy in the pace of governmental activity
since Buhari took office could be another way of registering their worry at the
slow pace of event in the Buhari administration.
The explanation from both the president and the few people so
far speaking in his name for this state of affairs and, perhaps, the general
‘go-slow’ that has entered governance has been that the Ahmed Joda committee
was yet to wind up its assignment. The committee had been raised to study the
handover report submitted by the Jonathan administration.
According to the
APC-led government, its attempt to set up a transition committee to work with
the former PDP-led government was rebuffed by the former administration. This
was the reason, they say, for the delay in taking quick strides forward. They
needed to study the Jonathan handover report closely in order to, so to speak,
know the lay of the land. In short, Buhari wanted full appraisal of the Jonathan
administration it gets down to business.
Nigerians must surely recall a statement credited to members of
the Jonathan administration that the administration would tolerate no
interference from the Buhari group detailed to work with it to ensure a smooth transition
in the wake of its defeat at the polls. The former president’s people warned
his successor’s team its input in the transition process would not be welcomed
before May 29, the day the mandate given Jonathan by Nigerians was expected to
expire.
Its generosity in conceding victory rather than roughing things up in
the typical Nigerian fashion, the warning seems to be saying, should not be
taken for weakness. It was for this reason that the Buhari team laid off to
wait until the former administration was ready to hand over its report. The
disagreement between the then outgoing and incoming teams was widely reported
in the media in the weeks leading up to the inauguration of Buhari.
Thus, Mohammadu Buhari would seem to have a good reason for not
naming his administrative team immediately Jonathan returned to Otuoke and he
took over as the new tenant of Aso Rock Villa (although he was not keen to move
into the Villa weeks after he was sworn into office).
Yes, Buhari really needs
to have a clear idea of what he is up against as the president of a Nigeria
virtually run aground by the PDP-led administration. But he would now need to
begin to move fast on this. In the weeks after he was declared winner of the
2015 presidential election, he ought to have set up something of a shadow
cabinet that could take over from the Jonathan cabinet at the shortest notice.
Jonathan has been praised for his graceful concession of victory immediately it
was clear that his opponent had more popular vote than him. He made no attempt
to prolong the waiting process leading to the declaration of a winner by the
Independent National Electoral Commission before calling Buhari and conceding
victory.
Buhari and his team ought to have seized this opportune gesture,
and should have started moving immediately after, even while I concede that the
demands of the nature of the coalition that brought him into office could have
affected his ability in this regard. Yet, a few policy pronouncements could
have been made and actual steps taken to signal the direction in which the
administration was headed.
Buhari’s directive to the military on Boko Haram was
intended to have this effect. That is what change ought to mean. It is
certainly what being prepared means. The Obafemi Awolowo-led Unity Party of
Nigeria needed no more than twenty four hours after the ban on politics was
lifted by the military in 1978 to announce its return to politics, setting up
and running its political machinery nationwide. Buhari and his team had several
weeks to plan and prepare before May 29.
Thankfully, the much-awaited Ahmed Joda Committee report has
been submitted last week. Perhaps, Nigerians can now hope to see some vigour
injected into governance. There may in this case be such a thing as ‘over
preparation’, that is planning so much that any single step forward becomes a
matter of much contemplation for fear of making mistakes.
Given what went
before and the fact that expectations are many and have been driven high,
moving forward may be daunting for Buhari. He is much older than the brash
soldier of 1984. He now has to operate in an environment where his words will
not necessarily have the effect of a law. All of this may lead to genuine
trepidation. But it should not be reason to be afraid to move forward.
It may be too early in the life of this administration to begin
to criticize it for being too slow. But Buhari must be careful not to fall into
the lethargic pit that swallowed the Umar Yar’Adua administration which took
over from Obasanjo in 2007. That administration’s excuse for being slow in many
areas of its activities was the necessity to follow ‘due process’ and ‘the rule
of law’.
It was for this reason both slow and indecisive in its approach to
governance. Where it stirred itself into action, it took no time to reverse
itself. Matters remained this way until its terminal exit some two years later.
Mohammadu Buhari cannot afford to be the authoritarian soldier of 1984. But he
also cannot afford to be the over cautious and tentative democrat of 2015.
by Rotimi Fasan
Via Ynaija
0 comments:
Post a Comment