It is needless to ask if President Bola Tinubu will reshuffle his cabinet or not, but when he will do so. After attainment of one year in office, a barrage of caustic perception of his administration calls for a cabinet reshuffle or outright disengagement of some ministers.
The cerebral Kingsley Moghalu said that to restore confidence in his administration, Tinubu needs to reshuffle his cabinet because one of the reasons investor confidence disappeared was that the process of appointing his cabinet was too slow and it was largely a very political type of cabinet when investors were hoping for something more technocratic to deal with the crisis at hand.”
Cabinet reshuffle is as old as democracy itself, if not older. As far back as 1828 when Andrew Jackson was elected US President, he was famous for dismissing government officials who had held the same jobs for years, replacing them with what later became known as the kitchen cabinet, comprising his informal circle of advisers. The term has endured through many decades and now generally refers to a politician’s inner circle. President John F. Kennedy would reach out to historians and scholars for informal advice on pressing issues, especially foreign affairs as well as domestic policy even if he didn’t like their faces and they were not his party men. Contributing to the British House of Commons Political and Constitutional Reform Committee in 2012, Rt. Hon. Ben Bradshaw noted that the main reason for cabinet reshuffle is to have the best possible team of ministers. Ideally, this process should be about rewarding ability and performance.
But in reality other factors come into play such as the need to balance governments politically, bring on young talent by giving them experience, resolve problems when ministers are forced to resign or sacked, refresh sectors that appear tired or under-performing. If an MDA is not performing and the issue is not addressed by shipping out the under-performing minister, it will negatively impact policy making and service delivery.
Nigerians want to see Ministers that can boldly take their portfolios by the scruff of the neck like Adesina as minister of Agriculture, the inimitable Okonjo-Iweala as Finance minister and coordinating minister of the economy or Oby Ezekwesili in Education, under the PDP.
At the same time, their colleagues, Health minister, Tim Menakaya and sports counterpart, Damisi Sango were dropped by Obasanjo, for deplorable state of public hospitals that led to an 11-week doctors’ strike and poor performance in international sports tournaments respectively.
The balancing act between politics and performance must see technocrats, professionals, round pegs in round holes leading the pack in a manner comparable to the Chinese digital revolution of the 80s that transformed the country into a global technological superpower.
Will President Tinubu as Petrol Minister take the blame in the event the Petroleum ministry turns out to be one of the under-performing ministries? Having said that, it is important to also point out that there are ministers you’d retain in your cabinet believing they can still deliver or to help you win the next election.
Again, I have heard people ask how does one measure performance to know who to drop and who to retain in the cabinet? The answer is simple. Don’t go to work in a convoy and siren. Walk down the street, look at the faces of the people you meet. If they don’t sneer and throw stones at you, you are home and dry. If they do, you’ll bite the dust in the election that would come next.
The performance indicators of Tinubu’s ministers are there for all to see- the hungry faces of the suffering masses on the streets, the poor and the dying. So in the spirit of his Renewed Hope agenda, the President will do well to push the red button for a cabinet reshuffle so as to separate the boys from the men.
It has often been said that if you visit a minister in his or her office, you will likely find portraits of their predecessors hanging on the walls. Often the portraits extend a great distance, down one side of the ministerial corridor, round a corner and back along the other side. These line of portraits serve as a memorial to the impermanence of office. In other words, ministers come and go, but the nation remains.
