The issue of President Muhammadu Buhari’s list of ministerial nominees was a subject of continuous discussion at different fora with many people making wild speculations bordering on opinions based on incomplete information.
There were so many lists in circulation on various media without anybody coming out to confirm, deny or discredit them. Most of these were conjectures and suppositions that could be widely wrong and totally unreliable. Consequently that situation has been causing much anxiety in the polity even as the president was yet to name those who would make up his cabinet.
However, President Buhari has indicated that he was not in a hurry to appoint his ministers and attributed the seeming delay in doing so to the late submission of the Transition Committee’s report to him. President Buhari upheld that he was being careful not to make mistakes in appointing individuals especially to key positions such as in the finance and petroleum ministries.
Although Nigerians were fully aware of the uncooperative and lukewarm attitude extended to the transition committee set up by President Buhari to work hand-in-hand with that of the federal government, instituted by outgoing President Goodluck Jonathan, yet they became increasingly eager to have ministers and have continued to pester the president over that matter. He certainly could not do so as he had to wait for the report which he would digest thoroughly before determining what problems were available in the finance and petroleum ministries and find appropriate persons to superintend their affairs.
By and large, majority of the President Buhari’s ministers would have to be politicians and technocrats he would therefore want to involve those with impeccable character and unquestionable integrity. In addition to that, Nigerian citizens expect that the calibre of ministers when eventually announced would definitely soar President Buhari’s popularity rating and will also enable them appreciate the direction the much expected change will take.
Knowing President Buhari’s precedence and preferences, his ministers must be those with proven track record of achievement in various positions of human endeavour. He would certainly not settle for greenhorns or those that could not untie the country’s knotty socio-political and economic problems with remarkable ease.
There is no gainsaying the fact that these difficult times demand that anybody to be entrusted with the enormous responsibility of a minister’s office must have a high sense of responsibility, with boundless capacity for hard work, and fully determined to take the country to greater heights.
It is quite obvious that people with shady and dishonourable past or those with proven cases of dishonesty and duplicity should not be harboured in Buhari’s administration. Buhari would also not contemplate a possibility of having a prospective minister who could be on the watch list of security services or that could be easily be placed under house arrest for any suspicion whatsoever.
It is widely expected that Buhari’s ministerial nominees would also be subjected to vigorous medical examinations to ensure that they are really fit to withstand the rigours of a ministerial work plan. It is also realistic to expect that Buhari’s cabinet ministers should be those he could absolutely trust, in whom he could also confide confidently without any fear of betrayal or treachery. Actually, Nigerians expect President Buhari’s cabinet to be an admixture of old and new breed ministers with an appreciable gender balance. It should accommodate a variety of interest groups including those with innovative ideas for rapid change.
Now, as the expectations and excitements of new cabinet rent the air because the people believe that a new set of ministers will certainly assist in solving the myriads of problems that make governance extremely cumbersome, everyone is eager to see the new Buhari administration mobilise into action and begin to fulfil its electoral promises which attracted the masses toward its leader.
What is more important about who would eventually make the Buhari list is not the stuff with which he was made, or how good he was, but his overall plan to add value to the governance by bringing the dividends of democracy to many doorsteps. Invariably that was what would guarantee the change we were all yearning for.
President Buhari has shown that he is for everybody and does not belong to anybody. So he would endeavour to bring everybody along without conceding to the whims and caprices of those who want to corner him for themselves as they would try to influence him to adopt their choice as one of his nominees. What Nigerians need to do presently is to wait patiently and expectedly for the president to reel out the names of nominees.
They will certainly be found to be worthy and acceptable to the majority of Nigerians. That would be the time for the commencement of purposeful action to move the country forward by initiating people-oriented policies and actions that would eventually rinse out the filth and grime brought about by corruption, decadence and immorality. When finally Buhari’s cabinet is ensembled it should not be business as usual, but concerted deliberations and actions to foster the much awaited change brought about by Buhari Revolution.
