7 federal ministers we don’t need

39 ministers of the federal republic, most of them are redundant. Some are inconsequential. Some are created to appease cronies. Some were created just to loot the treasury. The rest are ‘waka-pass’ (a Nollywood term for dreamers in the acting profession). There is even a coordinating minister nobody answers to. We don’t need this gazillion number of people to run an efficient government.

The frustrating irony of it all is that there are only 19 ‘real’ federal ministries. But unfortunately the 1999 Nigerian Constitution sanctioned and supported the enlarged numbers. It stipulates that a state must be represented by at least a minister in the federal cabinet.

So you have a minister from every state of the federation supported by a minister of state for the same ministry. The minister perhaps has a defined job function. But the minister of state has no clear-cut job function and worst still no defined index to measure his performance. The minister has ‘twenty’ police (for emphasis on the absurdity of the ministries) orderlies attached to his convoy of twenty huge SUVs. All of them fueled by the federal fund, which are sometimes unaccounted for. Everything the minister has, the minister of state have. The waste and leakages are mind blowing. I guess the idea behind this vulgarity is to create a sense of belonging and a sense of inclusion as well as a sense of equitable sharing of the natural wealth of the nation. What it didn’t represent or create was the ‘economic sense’. Those who came up with the idea to suggest that it will represent equity didn’t know it could represent strain on the national resources in the end-or they are plain stupid not to know it has far more ramifications. What we have today is a bloated federal government with the unnecessary financial commitment and unthinkable level of waste and leakages that is associated with a bloated government.

The consequence? The entrenchment of merit in the national psyche faded away as fast as the number of ministries ballooned. So in the ministries, the real civil servants were relegated to playing second fiddle to the civil servants hand picked from among the nannies, cooks, girlfriends/boyfriends and kinsmen/women of the minister-who at most times have no clue (s) as to what it takes to run a ministry, a department or an agency. Besides, the quality of the civil service sank below unprintable words.

In contrast, big economies like the United States, the UK and Canada, have lean mean departments or ministries driven by men and women chosen on merit. The US since 1789 has maintained just about 15 federal executive departments. The UK cabinet consists of the Prime Minister and 21 cabinet ministers who are all elected members of parliament. In Canada they are 28 ministers. Nearer home in Ghana, an African economy, there are just as few as 23 effective cabinet ministers while South Africa-until last year the biggest economy in the continent-have 35 cabinet ministers.

The men and women chosen to serve in these ministries are determined purely by merit not by ethnic or regional or geopolitical norms. Their effectiveness is driven by set goals and principles, intended for direct social impact and of course over all economic impact.

Now, here is the laughable irony of it all. When the federal government draws up its annual budget, items that were never included in the appropriation list in past came up. So you had provision for nannies travels, provisions for cooks of ministers’ driver and even provisions for spoons and plates. You also had provision for furniture for all of them, provisions for new Prado jeeps-all sorts of mundane items that have no direct economic consequences for the economy.

If you need a good reason to scrap or merge some of these redundant ministries, it is the pressure on government finance and government expenditure. 

Here is what I suggest; 1) the Land and urban development ministry could go back to ministry of works. (2) Scrap the ministry of Justice and send its functions back to the interior ministry. (3) The petroleum ministry should be scraped or merged with energy ministry. That is the cesspool of corruption in Nigeria.

(4)Ministry of youth development could also be collapsed into ministry of Education since the preponderance of those to be educated belongs to youth cadre. (5) Scrap the Niger Delta ministry. It has out lived its purpose. Move its functions to the interior ministry. (6) I see no reason why tourism ministry exists. It is suppose to be a symbol of our touristic values but people who have run that ministry have failed to lift its essence. It has not proven why it should exist as a separate ministry since its creation. Move it to be supervised by the trade and investment ministry. (7) Put water resources and environment under one umbrella.

This can be done without consulting the godfathers or the kingmakers. It is about efficiency and an efficiently run government.

Charles Ike-Okoh