YAR’ADUA’S DIMINISHED CAPACITY AND OUTSOURCING OF EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS?

BY: IFEANYI IZEZE

Nigeria is a nation that has failed severally to listen to God whenever the Almighty speaks on future issues concerning the country. The Ogun State PDP drama of ‘Umooru are you dead or alive’ was God’s warning on things to come concerning the capacity of the then heir- apparent to cope with the stress associated with the day-to-day running of the nation as an effective leader and president.

This country is supposed to be in dire hurry to wake up to the realities of backwardness and abject poverty ravaging its people and try to catch up with the dynamism of global socio-economic development. The situation desperately deserves a dynamic leader –whether servant or master, that is fully awake and alert to his calling. Instead, the conspiracy of Obasanjo and his PDP gave Nigerians a leader that is fully asleep and dreaming or maybe just waking up.

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President Yar’Adua is a human being as he already acknowledged. So he can be sick and be healed. There is no question about this statement of fact. However, the worrying aspect of the current state of leadership of the nation is the obvious diminished capacity of the President.

Though most selfish politicians have tried to seize the opportunity of the President’s health to propose or rather scheme all kinds of alternative arrangements to replace him, this in itself is very wrong.

However, there is real problem in the manner the President has been carrying on the business of providing effective leadership/rulership. The President has virtually outsourced over 98 percent of his executive functions to aides particularly the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and seven-point agenda ministers under the pretence of restructuring governance. This should actually be of serious concern to the people of this nation.

Recently, it was reported that the President sanctioned his own cabinet members from having direct access to him with the exception of those Ministers labelled as handling critical Ministries. Others ministers would be allowed access only if their matter is a national emergency. State governors have also been restricted from having direct access to their boss.

In its explanation, the Presidency claimed that the restriction was to enable President Yar’Adua and Vice President Goodluck Jonathan concentrate on their jobs and put a stop to unnecessary trips to the Villa by Ministers and state governors for routine administrative matters that do not require their presence.

A Statement by the President’s spokesperson explained that, “There is no reason why they should come and line up in the Villa waiting to see the President.

“The President deplores a situation in which Ministers rather than stay in their respective offices working, would spend the whole day in the Villa waiting to see him for what often turns out be matters they could easily have handled on their own.

“Most often, many bring files containing memos they could easily have sent through normal channels knowing they would get early response.”

No matter how novel the adduced reasons for the restriction may sound, Nigerians know better that there is more to such perestroika than mere focusing on the official assignment of governing the nation. It is all part of the gimmick to camouflage the diminished capacity of the President to cope with the pressures of office.  

President Yar’Adua at the occasion of his one year in office as a servant leader announced that he has concluded plans for a cabinet reshuffle. Six months after, he is still not certain on who should be in or out as according to him “the exercise has been delayed by pressure from some incumbent governors who want to bring in their candidates.”

The spokesperson for the President must obviously be embarrassed by now for severally speaking out of tune with his boss’s mindset on the issue of cabinet reshuffle.

Why won’t the Ministers line up at the President’s office? His indecision or rather slow-in-decision has created so much fear and uncertainty concerning the fate of the current cabinet members.

From day one or even during his campaigns the Yar’Adua declared that the Niger Delta issue would be addressed as an emergency when he assumes office. Over one year now, how he is handling this identified emergency is at best blurred and at worst obscured.

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Few weeks ago, in the President’s desperate attempt to shift attention from his state of health and the Saudi- German shuttle controversy, he announced the establishment of a Ministry of Niger Delta without a single idea and plan on how the ministry would be structured and operated for effective service delivery to the targeted region.

Also at the onset of his government, he promised to declare an emergency in the power sector. Seventeen months after, the power supply situation across the country is worse than he met it and nothing is being done to reverse the disgraceful trend in the service delivery except to award mouth-watering contracts to Siemens et al despite the bribery and corruption scandal which is still hanging on the German firm.

How long can the country continue like this? If the President had co-opted his deputy, Vice President Jonathan into mainstream day- to -day business of executive functions, maybe the existing hiatus in effective leadership may not have been so obvious to the ordinary Nigerians who would have been ignorant of the President’s diminished or rather diminishing capacity. The President’s close-door business would not help anybody not even the President himself.

The President’s health has made it very imperative for him to strengthen the capacities of all his ministers (maybe as the new ones are being expected) and aides by appointing people with genuine and proven  zeal and proactive ideas on what to do and how to do them without coming to line up in the President’s office. This way, he can create room to manage his health challenges while providing mere supervisory roles. There is nothing out of place in loading the Vice President with most of the official assignments and executive functions of the President.

My prayer: The Almighty God should please have mercy on Nigeria and its people and restore our President to full health so that he can function in full capacity to give this nation the highly needed focus in socio-economic development, Amen.

IFEANYI IZEZE IS AN ABUJA-BASED CONSULTANT ON POLITICAL STRATEGY AND GRASSROOT CONSULTATION

(iizeze@yahoo.com)