Buhari’s cabinet: Cleanest dirty shirts in the laundry? (1)

In a bid to ensure that Nigeria is in safe and secure hands for socioeconomic and political regeneration promised during his campaign, President Muhammadu Buhari has spent the better part of four months into his new administration scurrying around the country for incorruptible and professionally competent Nigerians to serve in his cabinet.

For a country located at the bottom rung of Transparency International’s global corruption perception index, finding 36 good men to fit the lofty expectations of PMB in consonance with his high integrity persona is akin to identifying the cleanest dirty shirts in the laundry. Although the task is as arduous as seeking for a needle in a hay stack, it would appear that PMB may be on target to accomplishing his mission as he prepares to roll out the list of the change agents that l would like to refer to as his economic ‘Husband Men’ in the coming days. Already, security agencies have been putting the potential candidates in the crucible and quite a number of names floating around in the mainstream and social media seem to have passed the litmus test.

In a country where people are judged based on ethnic bias and religious inclination rather than from the prism of their character and content, PMB, APC and, indeed, Nigerians should brace up for the flurry of criticism that would trail the official release of the names of the ‘few good men’ to the National Assembly for scrutiny and approval as ministers.

One way of vitiating the associated agony and stress is for PMB to take solace in the wise counsel of the philosopher John Adams, who posited that “Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organizations of haters”. The quote above underscores the fact that political hate is not peculiar to Nigeria.

While the aphorism that one can never be prepared enough holds true in almost all instances, a counter strategy to the aforementioned onslaught of ethnic jingoists and religious bigots who would seize the media space to literally slay the president as soon as the list is released may not be a media management masterstroke, but suffice it to say that the initiative would evince similar benefits realizable when measures are put in place to mitigate an anticipatory response to an uncommon policy. By that l mean that President Buhari’s spokesmen and APC’s reputation managers should proactively hedge against any backlash by preparing upfront information underpinning the principles behind the choice of the candidates and the values they are bringing to the table.

As image and crisis managers would agree, the efficacy of preemptive actions is undeniable and one way of justifying the appointments is by engaging their principal rigorously in dialogues that would elicit reasons for his choice of the candidates for the cabinet positions – professionally, ethnically and religiously. In a highly polarized country where divisive factors such as the tongue, tribe and worship pattern of candidates were freely used as commodity, currency and fuel during campaigns for the general election, appointments into public offices have assumed an equally combustible dimension, so one can never be too careful.

For instance, two of the recent appointments made by President Buhari that generated the most public opprobrium are the military service chiefs and his choice of secretary to government of the federation (SGF) and chief of staff. While these two appointments were later explained – he chose people he can trust having worked with the appointees over the years – his explanation that professionalism was purely the criteria applied in choosing the service chiefs (Army, Navy and Air Force) has been received with scepticism. Dissenters believe that it is unlikely that in the entire armed forces of Nigeria, no South-East or South-South candidate was qualified enough to fit the bill.

Against the foregoing background, it would be deft if detailed professional competence and political balancing factors that came into play in selecting the proposed cabinet members are availed members of the public to enable them judge for themselves the rigour invested in the exercise by Mr President and how altruistic his intentions are.

The idea that NASS should also be furnished with the proposed portfolio of the list of nominees being sent for clearance (recently canvassed in a newspaper editorial) should also be given due consideration as such facts could serve as public enlightenment that could take the wind off the sail of critics or those who may have some axe to grind. As we all know, putting a round peg in a round hole can hardly attract sustainable criticism and fundamentally, facts are antidotes to rumour-mongering.

Expectedly, there would be the tendency for some hawkish advisers to contend that Mr President does not owe Nigerians such detailed explanation, but such people would be misguiding PMB because the ultimate objective of any good politician is to carry the populace along in his policies and programmes. In my experience from studying politicians over the years, from Winston Churchill’s (1940-45 and 1951-55) wartime exploits in Great Britain encapsulated in his “battle of Britain” speech to parliament before the war against Germany; Franklin D. Roosevelt’s (1933-45) ‘New Deal’ to Americans during the great depression, and Deng Xiaoping’s (1978-92) introduction of ‘Four Modernizations’ in China after the Cultural Revolution, nothing engages the mind of a great politician and leader more than how to get his voting stakeholders to buy into his programmes and policies. To achieve that objective, a lot of what is today referred to as Emotional Intelligence – the ability to recognize one’s own and other people’s emotions is the skills required to better understand, empathize and negotiate with others – had to be invested.

Churchill relied on it in Great Britain, when he made the famous speech to parliament that Brits should prepare for “the battle of Britain” that enabled the country hold out against Germany and thus led them out from the brink of defeat to victory; Roosevelt deployed it in the USA when he re-established hope during the Great Depression through his pursuit of the three Rs policy of Relief, Recovery and Reforms conveyed in the New Deal; and Xiaoping adopted it in China when after the calamitous Cultural Revolution, he had to deftly negotiate with the Communist party leadership to allow a bit of openness in order to introduce the “Beijing Spring” that allowed criticism of govt and enabled him pursue the policy of “Four Modernizations”, which entailed the opening up of Chinese economy to foreign investments in the economy, agriculture, scientific and technological development and national defence. Now, PMB had mentioned in his Chatham House presentation last February that one event that significantly inspired his change of ideology from autocracy to democratic system of governance is the fall of the Soviet Union. So I assume that PMB has abiding interest in history of how nations leap forward or collapse. That’s why I choose England, USA and China as references in my analogy as models for success.

It might interest PMB to note that in more ways than one, he is like Winston Churchill as both were soldiers, and both also ruled their country twice – first as soldier and later as politician. PMB is also to some extent like Deng Xiaoping who sought to foist radical changes to leadership and fell from grace only to return to power later. The Nigerian leader is also basically similar to F. D. Roosevelt as both ruled their countries in the period of economic recession.

Magnus Onyibe