Former Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu, expresses disappointment with President Bola Tinubu’s cabinet overhaul.
The cabinet reshuffle, as per the ex-minister, was driven by political motives rather than appointing more capable individuals to the Federal Executive Council (FEC).
Shittu said this the day after the President fired five ministers, moved around 10 ministers, and nominated Bianca Ojukwu and six others for the Senate to approve.
With Nigeria’s economic instability, inflation, and security issues, Tinubu has received heavy criticism for his ministers’ performance.
In response to calls for change, the President reshuffled his cabinet on Wednesday, dismissing five ministers, reassigning 10, and making seven new appointments.
But Shittu, who was a minister under Buhari, thinks the cabinet shake-up is just a political show to make people happy.
Shittu Criticizes Tinubu’s Cabinet Shake-Up: Says Not Impressive
Shittu said…
“If you look at the changes we had yesterday (Wednesday), I doubt whether it is necessarily bringing in superior minds or better minds, in terms of governance, in terms of expectations, in terms of performance,”
“As far as I am concerned, it is just a case of some Nigerians being asked to move on, some other Nigerians are being brought in, which does not necessarily mean that those who have been shoved aside are inferior to the new people being brought in.”
“More often than not, it is not everybody who is appointed as a minister that fits in,”.
“You’ll agree with me that because of the Nigerian factor, a lot of decisions have political colourations than meritocracy in determining who becomes a minister.”
“I would rather prefer that people are taken through a screening process to know their suitability.
“For instance, I make bold to say that today, we have an engineer as a minister of works. Any key watchers of events in the Ministry of Works would agree that the fact that the occupant of that position is a civil engineer impacts very positively on the assignment.
“If, for instance, I, as a lawyer, who has not had any training or any understanding of engineering, if I am to be posted to the works’ ministry, of course, it would take a lot of time to learn and Nigerians certainly don’t have too much time in such learning process.”