It is becoming trendy for elected Nigerian presidents and governors to put together fanciful transition committees made up of brilliant minds in the country, but they tend to end of hiring people that are not as smart as those they nominated for their transition committees.
In 2015, then newly elected president Muhammadu Buhari put together a 19-man transition team. Led by the late Ahmed Joda, a retired senior public servant and businessman, the committee also had egg-heads like Professor Doyin Salami of the Lagos Business School, Wale Edun and Festus Odimegwu.
They were to engage in among other responsibilities, “reviewing and making preliminary assessment of the balance sheet of government with particular emphasis on the status of assets and liabilities of government; cash flow position of the government; quantum of public domestic and external debt of government and their deployment; government’s out-standing contractual obligations and its ability to meet such obligations and the status of implementation of capital projects.
The committee was also tasked to “undertake a preliminary assessment of the security challenges facing the country and the counter-insurgency measures taken by the government thus far; the counter policy measures being implemented in the Niger Delta to deal with unrest and major economic crimes in the area.”
In June 2015, Mallam Joda told a newspaper after submitting his committee’s report, that, “I think the new administration has a pretty good idea but the situation we are going to meet is going to be difficult.
They should have prepared themselves to face these challenges adequately. That is why it is necessary for the government of Buhari to select those who would work for him to be extremely careful of how they select the people who will be doing the work for them; people who are willing and able to do the job and who are capable of delivering the goods.
These are people who must devote themselves absolutely to the people of Nigeria and it is possible. It was possible under Awolowo, it was possible under Sardauna.”
By the time Mr. Buhari decided to name his cabinet six months later in November, it was a very underwhelming one; high on nepotism and low on competence and unable to deliver effective services and political and socio-economic rights.
Nigeria’s newly elected president, Bola Tinubu is set to name his new cabinet and the media is flaring with possible names. Like all other newly minted presidents in the country, Mr. Tinubu has empanelled a transition team.
It is a transition team that is devoid of star names and power. Unlike Mr. Buhari’s committee, Mr. Tinubu’s transition team is influentially sterile; barred from undertaking any assessment or review of the state of the nation under Mr. Buhari.
The president-elect is no doubt making all efforts to avoid any conflict with the incumbent.
There has been intense lobbying however, for admission into Mr. Tinubu’s cabinet. Most of the lobbying, BusinessDay found has been by politicians, including out-going state governors, and the coterie of power and influence around the president-elect since his days as governor of Lagos State who form the Southwest wing of the party.
Tinubu fancies himself as a good recruiter of talents. In June 2015, he described himself to the London-based news agency, Reuters, as a talent hunter who gets the best hands for political offices.
“I am a talent hunter. I put talents in office, I help them. I use the best hand, the best brain, the best experience for the job.”
In June 2019, Tinubu reiterated his definition of himself as a pursuer of talent. “I am a talent hunter,” he told an online interviewer.
“If you don’t build a successful generation of leaders that will follow you, you’re finished…I hunt for good talents in Nigeria and I have them all over. If you do not allow the talents, the initiative, the creativity in a nation, you have wasted a generation; you have wasted your own history; you’ve wasted a nation.
“You have to build a nation of patriotic youths to really transform the society. If you don’t look for brilliant, talented young people to be in the national assembly and make good laws, you’re bound to obey the laws made by foolish people…It is not where an individual comes from, it is the amount of knowledge he has,” Mr. Tinubu said in an ostensible dig at President Buhari’s nepotism and parochialism.
Many have faulted Mr. Tinubu’s boisterous claim to being a perceptive recruiter of competencies. Tinubu’s biggest recruit into public office has been the current president, Muhammadu Buhari. Mr. Tinubu helped to re-package him, campaigned for him and made him president.
Mid last year, Mr. Tinubu in apparent frustration at Mr. Buhari’s indifference if not private hostility to his presidential ambition, lashed out at the president.
Speaking to party members in Abeokuta, Ogun state, Mr. Tinubu recalled his role in the emergence of President Buhari in 2015, maintaining that the incumbent Nigerian leader would have lost the election if not for his efforts.
“You have not heard this from me before. This is the first place I am saying this,” he told his audience.
“If not for me that stood behind Buhari, he wouldn’t have become the President. He tried the first time, he failed. The second time, he failed. The third, he failed.
“He even wept on national television and vowed never to contest again but I went to meet him in Kaduna and told him he will run again, I will stand by you and you will win, but you must not joke with Yorubas and he agreed.”
The president-elect now has his chance to undo the harm he caused the nation when he helped to recruit a very incompetent and provincial Mr. Buhari into the topmost leadership position in the country.
Mr. Buhari’s eight years in power comes to an end on May 29. Buhari has been severally accused of nepotism, marginalisation, and incompetence, while corruption has smutted his government. Many Nigerians believe the country has remained more divided than he met it, with insecurity permeating almost every part of the country.
Most Nigerians also agree that Mr. Buhari has been a bad and unpopular recruit. A 2021 survey conducted by the Africa Polling Institute (API) revealed that the trust Nigerians had in the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration has dropped to an all-time low of 26 percent from about 75% 2015.
Read also: Tinubu faces NASS leadership challenge, mum on Atiku’s “dual citizenship” petition
Mr. Tinubu, a strong member of the country’s political establishment has vowed to fulfil people’s expectations by responding to their legitimate yearnings and aspirations.
“Our promise to deliver a nation of renewed hope for all Nigerians remains in motion,” he said on his recent return to the country after one month away ostensibly on medical treatment.
Many Nigerians are unimpressed with his promise.
“You want to renew the hope of Nigerians and nine former Governors are making it to your cabinet. Most of these governors are the root causes of the problems in their states,” Daniel Bwala, a spokesperson for the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, noted on twitter about widespread news reporting on Mr. Tinubu’s proposed cabinet.
“The issue of leadership recruitment at all levels of governance in our country, is central to our current national predicament; and getting it right is key to the resolution of our poor governance and development processes.
“We evidently have been recruiting and appointing or electing inappropriate leaders, quite often, round pegs in square holes, and undermining, rather than, strengthening our governance, democratic and development processes,” former Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, professor Attahiru Jega, noted last year at the University of Lagos Muslim Alumni Association (UMA) Annual Pre-Ramadan Lecture.
Ibrahim Jibrin, a professor of political science and Senior Fellow with the Centre for Development, CDD, also posited last year that, “We must develop an overwhelming consensus that political leadership cannot remain the only job for which no qualification appears necessary except to have a lot of money, usually, stolen money. It is clear that for as long as the current pattern of leadership recruitment continues, our troubles will continue. It is for this reason that we must find a way to bring relevant criteria to bear on the selection of leadership. We have got to find a way of making character, competence and capacity to determine who leads”.
The tradition of poor political and policy leadership in the country seems set to continue unless the incoming president makes a radical departure from the past and seeks to recruit the most competent in the country into his cabinet and into government departments and agencies.
He will need to assess how he attracts, develops and retains talents in his government. Superior talent is up to eight times more productive and driving sustainable, inclusive growth requires the right mindset, strategy, and capabilities, a June 2022 McKinsey report found.
“The leaders who choose growth and outperform their peers not only think, act, and speak differently; they align around a shared mindset, strategy, and capabilities. Their commitment to growth leads them to invest in an appropriate mix of enablers at the right time and scale.”
Social capital is the biggest enabler of organisational and national growth.
For the president-elect, this is the time to make bold decisions, reshaping the direction of the country and realigning capital and talent accordingly.
