5 Former Cabinet Members Buhari Must No Reappointed Ministers

Just as it happened in 2015, the tension once again is gradually building up and the man in the midst of it all appears to be very okay with it all.

It is actually very interesting and somehow disappointing for many Nigerians that President Muhammadu Buhari has decided to toe the same path he did in 2015 as relates with the constitution of his ministers.

As it appears, a leopard cannot change its colour!

This is because despite the hues and cries that trailed the delay and length of time it took him to constitute his cabinet back then, President Muhammadu Buhari is once again giving Nigerians the same treatment as already, it is four months since he was declared winner of the 2019 presidential election and a month already since he was sworn in yet no cabinet members in sight!

Anyway that’s not really the focus of this article as you might know. Our focus here is to highlight 5 former ministers we opine Buhari must not re-appoint into his new cabinet.

Recall that almost all of his ministers in his first term  served their full term except for the likes of Kemi Adeosun who voluntarily resigned her position due to her NYSC certificate forgery saga and Nigeria’s women’s affairs minister, Aisha Alhassan resigned who resigned from president Muhammadu Buhari’s cabinet citing the ruling party’s decision to disqualify her from contesting for the Taraba governorship as one of the reasons for her action and also the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Mrs Khadija Bukar-Ibrahim who was a serving member of the Federal House of Representatives when President Muhammadu Buhari nominated her for the post of a minister in 2015.

For the records these are the full list of President Buhari’s ‘Change’ cabinet; Audu Innocent Ogbeh (Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development), Udoma Udo Udoma (Minister of Budget and National Planning), Abdur-Raheem Adebayo Shittu (Minister of Communication), Mansur Muhammad Dan Ali (Minister of Defence), Mallam Adamu Adamu (Minister of Education), Ibrahim Usman Jibril (Minister of Environment), Alhaji Muhammad Musa Bello (Minister of Federal Capital Territory), Geoffrey Jideofor Kwusike Onyeama (Minister of Foreign Affairs), Isaac Folorunso Adewole (Minister of Health), Okechukwu Enyinna Enelamah (Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment), Lai Mohammed (Minister of Information and Culture), Abdulrahman Bello Dambazau (Minister of Interior), Abubakar Malami (Minister of Justice), Chris Nwabueze Ngige (Minister of Labour and Employment), Usani Uguru Usani (Minister of Niger Delta), Babatunde Raji Fashola (Minister of Power, Works and Housing), Ogbonnaya Onu (Minister of Science and Technology), John Kayode Fayemi (Minister of Solid Minerals ), Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi (Minister of Transportation), Suleiman Hussein Adamu (Minister of Water Resources), Aisha Jummai Alhassan (Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development) and Solomon Selcap Dalung (Minister of Youth and Sports).

In an earlier post we had profiled 5 Quintessential Female Politicians We Would Like To See On Buhari’s ‘Next Level’ Cabinetso below we profile five former ministers we opine Buhari must not re-appoint into his cabinet taking into consideration their performance, controversies and general rating of their ministries while in service.

Solomon Selcap Dalung

The first person on our list is interesting the very last person in the list above and that is Solomon Selcap Dalung

Perhaps the worst performer among President Buhari’s last cabinet members. His was a tenure that sparked widespread reactions on several occasions as to his utterances and approach to issues.

Interestingly, many were surprised with his appointment as sports minister given his background in law. No one was really sure what sporting antecedents the man had in the first place to have warranted the President giving him that portfolio.

His tenure was a tenure filled with blunder.

First it was in relation to Nigeria’s performance at the Rio Olympics game where Nigeria came home with one bronze and 12 Paralympian medals.

The only words of encouragement the dear minister had to offer was to say that the athletes didn’t need to do  much preparation to do well at competitions.

His remark came after the sterling performance posted by Team Nigeria athletes at the Paralympic Games also in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. According to him, the Paralympic athletes also had bad preparations like their able bodied athletes but did better in Brazil. Nigerians were indeed not happy with the comment to say the least.

Again, Minister Dalung said that Nigeria did not need to attend the World Cup which held in Russia last year June. His reasons were that the competition stinks of corruption, Nigeria he said was too poor to waste money on it and that Nigeria would never win the trophy.

The implication of his statement is also that it is not necessary to waste money qualifying when you cannot win the World Cup. He said Nigeria should be content with playing at the Nations Cup, Olympics, Commonwealth Games. He said that Nigeria could win the Nations Cup but not the World Cup.

What a minister you might say!

Next is Adebayo Shittu.

His is another name that should not be on the next cabinet list. This is because of his many scandals and controversies surrounding him.

Among the prominent scandals faced by the minister are the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and court cases instituted by his aides.

Shittu was recently dragged before an Abuja Division of the National Industrial Court (NIC) over twenty-one million, five hundred thousand Naira (N21,500,000.00) unpaid salaries and allowances by his former aides.

They were former Personal Assistant to the minister, Razaq Olubodun and Special Assistant on Media, Victor Oluwadamilare.

The duo in their separate suits filed by their counsel, Adewale Lawal prayed the court to order the payment of their outstanding salaries and allowances which the Minister allegedly denied them while serving under him.

Olubodun, in his suit numbered NICN/Abj/132/2019 is seeking to recover from the Minister the sum of N9.8m allegedly paid alongside the Minister’s salaries and allowances for 24 months.

Chris Ngige

Minister Chris Ngige will be remembered for a long while to come as the Health minister who told Nigerians it had too many doctors and so they could migrate to other countries.

Chris Ngige, a medical doctor and then minister of labour had claimed in an interview on Channels TV that Nigeria has ”more than enough” physicians to meet the needs of the country’s nearly 200 million citizens.

“We have more than enough doctors. You can quote me,” Ngige said. “We have surplus. If you have surplus, you export. There is nothing wrong in them travelling out. When they go abroad, they earn money and send them back home here.”

This however is far from the truth as Nigeria according to reports has just 2.27 doctors working in the country for every 10,000 person, a figure that compares very poorly with other emerging countries.

Prof. Isaac Adewole

This is another minister that sent the roof flying high with his controversial comment.

The idea is this, a minister is supposed to be seen as the face and voice of the said ministry he or she is heading and so when such individual turns around to voice out opinion that runs contrary or negates the core principles of his ministry and those therein, then there is bound to be problem.

While answering questions from journalists in a video that went viral last year on social media, the minister was asked why Nigerian doctors have to wait for a long time to get residency training.

In response, the minister casually said that all doctors cannot become specialists and can try their hands at other things like farming or politics. While still failing to answer to question, he said his tailor makes the best gowns despite being a doctor.

He said, “It might sound selfish, but we can’t all be specialists. We can’t. Some will be farmers, some will be politicians.

“The man who sews my gown is a doctor. He makes the best gown. And some will be specialists, some will be GPs, some will be farmers.”

The migration of Nigerian doctors out of the country has been alarming in recent times with many expressing worry that there are not enough specialists in the country, making the minister’s comments insensitive to many.

Again he opined that there was really no serious shortage of doctors in Nigeria as many believe.

While speaking during the opening ceremony of the 38th Annual General Meeting and Scientific Conference of the National Association of Resident Doctors of Nigeria (NARD) on Friday, September 21, 2018, the minister said there is no serious shortage of doctors in Nigeria, as popularly believed.

He said Nigeria has the ratio of one doctor to 4,088 patients, a ratio he says is not bad when compared to other African countries.

“The data obtained from the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria as of May 30, revealed that 88,692 doctors are registered in their books. Of these doctors, only 45,000 are currently practicing and that gives us a ratio one doctor to 4,088 persons.

“Compared to many other African countries the ratio is not bad, for example, in South African it is one (doctor) to 4,000; in Egypt it is one to 1235; in Tanzania it is 1: 14,000; in Ethiopia, it is one to 1 to 118,000, in Kenya, it is one to 16,000 and in Cameroon it is one to 40,000,” he said.

He noted that what is believed to be a shortage of doctors is actually the uneven distribution of practicing doctors within the country. He said there is a huge imbalance between the distribution of doctors to the urban and rural areas.

“About 50 percent of the doctors in Nigeria can be found in Lagos and Abuja axis whereas many of the facilities in the North and rural areas have no doctors,” he said.

But is this really true? For his controversial statement and perspective, he comes around s another minister Buhari shouldn’t give a second term as minister.

Mallam Adamu Adamu

While the Minister was not so much of a controversial figure during his term as Minister of Education, not much was heard of him either.

Lets have your thoughts below.