On That Presidential Riot Act -By Adekunle Adekoya

It was pleasant reading that President Bola Tinubu read a riot act to his ministers and heads of agencies last Monday at the opening of a presidential retreat on how the Renewed Hope Agenda will be actualised. Saying that his administration is racing against time to rejig the economy and upgrade the standard of living of Nigerians within a set time frame, the president said, and I quote:

“At the end of this retreat, you’re going to sign a bond of understanding between you, the ministers, the permanent secretaries, and myself. If you are performing, nothing to fear; if you miss the objective, we’ll review; if there is no performance, you leave us. No one is an island, and the buck stops on my desk. I assure you, you have a free hand. You must be intellectually inquisitive to ask how, why, when, and why it must be immediate. You have the responsibility to serve the people.”

In addition, the president disclosed that he has set up a monitoring unit in his office to measure performance, called the Result Delivery Unit, RDU, established to periodically appraise the performance of the ministers and chief executive officers of relevant government agencies. Again, I quote: “I’ve taken a young lady, very dynamic, Hadiza Bala Usman, to head that delivery unit. If you have any complaints about her, see me. If you’re ready to work with her, stay there.

Delivery, yes, we must achieve it for the sake of millions of our people. It’s our country; we have no other one. Let’s be proud that we’re Nigerians and we can do it. You can show leadership. We can fight to make democracy a lasting reference for the rest of Africa.”

Well said. I think this is a refreshing departure from past profiles in which people were appointed into offices and left to their own devices, which was why in many instances, they remained in office actualising personal agenda instead of working for the nation’s benefit.

From this, I think the take-away for ministers is to see what they are going to do on their beats to make real difference. In some areas, we are already seeing improvement, as witnessed by goings-on in the Interior Ministry, where the minister got the Nigerian Immigration Service to clear the backlog of passports, and is now even working to see how passports can be issued to applicants at desired addresses.

I think that is how to make government work for the people. I have a few ministers that I can task as the state of affairs on their beats impact our ability to pursue happiness. I specifically call on the Minister of Works to swing into action immediately to fix the bad portions of on all federal roads and bridges in the country. Many of them have not just become death traps, their condition makes motoring hellish and debilitating, which criminal-minded fellow compatriots are exploiting to perpetrate nefarious activities.

Not that alone, we generated a worldwide record when it took us more than 20 years to repair the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. How much longer would it have taken to deliver if it were a fresh project? The East-West Road is another one. Almost two decades after the contract for dualisation of the 338-kilometre East-West Road was awarded in four sections to four different contractors during the Obasanjo administration, the road is yet to be completed.

In fact, non-completion of the Eleme-Onne axis of the road, with over 300 oil and gas companies in the area which generate over N500 billion yearly, is an expression of how the nation shot itself in the feet. I invite the Works Minister, in conjunction with other stakeholders to immediately take action towards completion of this all-important road.

The next minister I want to task is the one in charge of Trade Industry and Investment. This minister has a lot of work to do, chief of which, from where I stand, is seeing how many of our comatose/dead factories can be resuscitated, and made to resume production. I also urge this minister to see her schedule as complementing that of the governor of the Central Bank, especially as it concerns exchange rate management.

The more we produce locally, the less we will have to import, and the less we have to import, the stronger our currency gets against the US Dollar. Why did the tyre makers — Dunlop and Michelin — fold up? Why are Steyr, ANAMMCO, PAN, others no longer producing? How did it happen that Suzuki and Yamaha motorcycles that were produced locally suddenly got replaced by Bajaj and Haojue brands that were imported?

How did Adebowale Electrical Industries, Oluwa Glass, Isoglass, Berec, Exide and a thousand and one others in Lagos, Kano, Kaduna, Port Harcourt, Sapele and elsewhere all go under? The minister must see what to do to bring them back. It is doable. To the ministers of Health and Environment, I wish to remind them that one of the greatest public health threats in Nigeria is malaria.

They must work together to make the environment clean enough as to make it unattractive for mosquitoes to flourish. The Marine & Blue Economy minister should also see how Nigerians can get back into the fishing industry, so that making a pot of fish stew can again become affordable. All these and more are doable. I agree with the President: Any minister that can’t perform should be fired!