Reshuffling of cabinet based on scorecard, says Presidency

The recent rearrangement of President Bola Tinubu’s cabinet which saw five ministers discharged and others reassigned was based on facts in their scorecards, Bayo Onanuga, the special adviser to the president on information and strategy, has revealed.

The special adviser also highlighted the role of Hadiza Bala Usman, his colleague in the policy and coordination department in collating the scorecard results.

“When the ministers were sworn in, the President actually told them that as the president, he has the power to hire and fire, and that he would not hesitate to remove ministers who could not perform,” Onanuga said during an interview on ARISE TV Thursday. “There was a retreat in October last year where he also repeated the same warning about his plan to rejig his cabinet in case some are not performing well.”

He explained that Bala Usman was assigned to track the performance appraisal, which involved gathering public feedback on the ministers’ work.

“It was not just something that was done whimsically, I think Hadiza Bala Usman, Special Adviser on Policy and Coordination in fact brought technology into it by asking Nigerians to score the minister. So, whoever was removed was based on some empirical facts and their public perception. Nigerians actually did the scorecard and the President acted on the results.”

Onanuga added that the dismissals did not necessarily mean that the ministers were not meeting Tinubu’s expectations.

“But the expectation of the public. Some weeks ago at the cabinet meeting, the President actually challenged the ministers to go out and tell Nigerians what they have been doing for the past one year or so.

“According to the president, the perception outside there by the people is that the people feel that the government is not performing, and the government believes that the government is performing, but the ministers were not going out to really project government the appropriate way”, he submitted.

Yesterday, the presidency announced that Uju-Ken Ohanenye from the Women Affairs Ministry, Lola Ade-John of Tourism Ministry, Tahir Mamman of the Education ministry, Abdullahi Muhammad Gwarzo of the Housing and Urban Development Ministry and Jamila Bio Ibrahim of Youth Development ministry were discharged from their ministerial roles.