With the frequency of military coups happening in Africa and its normalization where they had occured, I am deeply concerned about the future of democracy in Africa.
Granted that most African leaders should be blamed for the new normal, I still think the best military rule remains worse than any democracy .
To prevent military coups I suggest that those in leadership should always feel the pulse of the people , respect the rule of law and the will of the people through the ballot. Let me commence this opinion by congratulating Senator Dave Umahi his appointment as the Minister for Works. Knowing his antecedents, I believe our infrastructure can only get better.
Umahi’s appointment is one appointment that I believe President Tinubu got right. I also believe that Wike is a square peg in a square hole as FCT minister. I am saying this despite our political differences . If not FCT Minister, I would have loved to see Nwike as the Defence Minister or Minister of Police Affairs. Nigeria actually need to have ministers that are prepared to work .
I would have also loved to see Mr Peter Obi as either Minister of Finance or CBN governor.
As things are right now, I believe the president needs help, Nigeria needs help and all hands must be on deck, otherwise this ship will wreck.
Back to the issue of our discourse.
According to the Nigerian Constitution, each of the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, is entitled to have a minister. Additionally, the President can appoint six more ministers, one from each of the six geopolitical zones in the country. The qualifications for the appointment of ministers vary from country to country. However, there are other qualifications at the level of bio-data like age, education and citizenship. A prospective minister must be a Nigerian citizen who must be 30 years of age. He must also be educated up to at least school certificate level or its equivalent. One would have expected a minister to have a higher educational level because of the heavy and complex executive responsibility.
This contrasts very sharply with the Australian counterpart where 42 of the 44 ministers are graduates of mostly University of Sydney, Adelaide University, and Monash University. It is said: “When it comes to being a minister in the Australian Parliament, degrees matter”. In fact, most of them hold double degrees in Arts and Law. Legal professionals constitute 10.6% of the Australian Parliament. It is even more surprising that the Nigerian Constitution does not prescribe any specific experience level for a would- be minister. A ministerial candidate is also supposed to be clinically ethically clean. The candidate shall be disqualified to hold a ministerial position if he voluntarily acquired the citizenship of a country other than Nigeria as he thus forfeits his Nigerian citizenship not being by birth. He must not be adjudged or declared a lunatic or of unsound mind. This is a very important condition, but no professional verification process is specified being not easily verifiable like the requirement that the candidate must not be under a sentence of death or imprisonment or fine for misdemeanour which is by a court of competent jurisdiction. The candidate must not have been sentenced for an offence involving dishonesty or contravention of the Code of Conduct nor must he be an undischarged bankrupt or a member of a secret society or been indicted for embezzlement or fraud by a competent body. The candidate must have vacated his position in the federal or state public service at least 30 days before nomination.
Consequently Chapter 6. Part 1. Section 147 of the Nigerian Constitution states that;
i. There shall be such offices of ministers of the Government of the Federation as may be established by the President.
ii. Any appointment to the office of minister of the Government of the Federation shall, if the nomination of any person to such office is confirmed by the senate, be made by the President.
iii. Any appointment under subsection (2) of this section by the President shall be in conformity with the provisions of section 14(3) of this constitution: provided that in giving effect to the provisions aforesaid the President shall appoint at least one minister from each state, who shall be an indigene of such state.
iv. Where a member of the National Assembly or of a House of Assembly is appointed as minister of the Government of the Federation, he shall be deemed to have resigned his membership of the National Assembly or of the House of Assembly on his taking the oath of office as minister.
v. No person shall be appointed as minister of the Government of the Federation unless he is qualified for election as a member of the House of Representatives.
vi. An appointment to any of the offices aforesaid shall be deemed to have been made where no return has been received from the senate within 21 working days of the receipt of nomination by the Senate.
In concluding this section on the qualifications of ministers, it is important to mention that the nomination by the President is not final. The President is required to submit the list of ministers to Senate for screening. This therefore gives the Senate the final approval. Senate is, therefore, also culpable for the eventual poor performance be held responsible for any substandard performance of any minister. The legislature also has the constitutional responsibility of oversight of the ministries. However, experience shows that there are systemic and personal constraints that militate against objective screening of ministers by the Senate.
Ethnic groups are social formations distinguished by the communal character of their boundaries, the relevant communal factors being language and culture. Ethnicity has played a rather dominant role in the public life of Nigerian federation. So much has been tied to it in the national consciousness, including the availability of public offices, benefits, patronage etc, that, the moment somebody gets into public office (whether elected or appointed), it is perceived as the much-needed opportunity for members of his or her ethnic group to have access to the nation’s resources, or what has been termed in local everyday parlance, “the national cake”. There is the intense struggle by the diverse ethnic or cultural groups dominantly the major ethnic groups such as the Hausa/Fulani; Igbo and Yoruba that make up the federation of Nigeria to control power at the federal level and to use such power for their ethnic benefits rather than for all members of the federation. Taking control of governance at the centre is therefore publicly viewed as a necessity in order to correct dislocations in the economy.
Opposition to successive governments has often been propelled by ethnic sentiments, or at any rate, has been fuelled by the machinery of ethnic violence, sometimes leading to insecurity and instability in the polity and their attendant consequences. So, endemic have some of these ethnically motivated activities been that device such as rotation of elective political offices among geopolitical groups or zones, a quota system of admission into public educational institutions, the principle of federal character, have been suggested or adopted as panacea to the dislocation with the polity. These intense struggles can be seen in the reaction of the Yoruba nationality to the annulment of the Presidential election of June 12, 1993 and the tyrannical rule of Sani Abacha Military regime, which led to an irredentist struggle against the Federalist Statecraft. For them, it was as much a struggle also for democracy as it is for a restructuring of the Yoruba nation.
In the case of the Igbo nationality, the issue of social injustice resulting from the after-effects of the Biafra secessionist project and the civil war that followed (1967-1975) have drawn their attention to the absence of proper accommodation for them in the federation in terms of employment, economic opportunities, infrastructural development, politics, their inherently human and group freedom as well as constitutional rights to settle down in any part of the country for peaceful transaction of business. Another major constraint which undermines the federal structure as enunciated under the 1999 Constitution is the issue of presidential election, where the zone of presidential aspirant is weightier than his ability to lead the nation. The popular and age-long old perception of the Nigerian political process has been that the North had been the unduly dominant beneficiary of federal resources. Because of this, any ethnic groups that secure the control of federal power interpret and apply the federal power and resources as it benefits them.
The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999(as amended) stipulates that the President should appoint ministers to head ministries and report directly to him within 60 days of his inauguration. Ministers are first grade advisers who are also advised by their own advisers. In a way, therefore, ministers are advised in the process of advising the President, but their advisers are indemnified by convention. There is therefore a policy filtration process because the advice that ultimately lands at the President’s desk is ideally the product of the interaction between a minister and his advisers. This process speaks to the quality of the hiring process. Where the minister and his advisers are hired for reasons other than competence and experience, the quality of advice is adversely affected.
