President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration is not new to being embarrassed by the unforced errors of its officials.
Still smarting from the (unauthorized) advance release of an edit-in-progress script of the President’s speech of April 27, 2020, the media was abuzz yet again on Tuesday, April 28 about the inclusion of a dead politician, Chief Tobias Okwuru, as a member of the Board of the Federal Character Commission. Meanwhile Okwuru died on February 28, 2020.
The late Okwuru who died aged 59, was a former Peoples Democratic Party who was initially a member and Chief Whip of the Ebonyi State House of Assembly and later represented Ikwo/Ezza South Federal Constituency at the House of Representatives.
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It would be recalled that in 2017, the list of appointments into the boards of federal agencies and corporations generated controversy after the names of five reportedly demised persons appeared on it. They included Senator Francis Okpozo (Delta), Rev. Father Christopher Utau (Benue), DIG Donald Ugbaja (retd), Garba Attahiru (Kaduna) and Umar Dange (Sokoto).
Clearly, there appears to be a very cavalier attitude from some members of the President’s team to due diligence and possibly even the Key Performance Indices (KPIs) of their offices. Could this be the reason for the less than stellar performance of his administration? If they cannot sort out small issues how can they sort out the big issues which call for even more intellectual rigour and studious application of mind over matter?
POSERS:
- Is President Buhari not too tolerant of mediocre appointees?
- Is there too much overlap of functions among his appointees such that some do not know and thus do not understand what they need to do?
- Is there deliberate mischief among some of Buhari’s appointees such that they work to embarrass their colleagues (read competitors) so as to ease them out?
- Is this state of affairs not undermining Nigeria’s progress under the Buhari Presidency?
- How can President Buhari ensure that such embarrassment ends and a good number his appointees generally step up their deliverables from current lack-lustre levels?
- How does this reflect on the Nigerian Senate that is supposed to have oversight over the executive? Those lists both passed through the Senate. How come no Senator could spot the problem?
- What does this say about the Senate’s dedication to duty?
