A fresh call by the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association on the Federal Government to urgently inaugurate the boards of the National Pension Commission and other agencies of government has again exposed the leadership deficiencies of the President, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.). Like many other federal institutions, PENCOM, a critical agency tasked with regulating, supervising and ensuring the effective administration of pension matters in Nigeria, has been without a board or substantive head since April 2017. PENCOM has warned that this threatens the proper management of the pension funds.
Agencies of government are established by laws, which ought to be obeyed to the letter. These laws prescribe the credentials of the appointees, the tenure and the organisational structure of the agency. Sadly, like in many areas of governance, Buhari has demonstrated a penchant for tardiness and a predilection for arbitrariness.
According to reports, about 80 Federal Government agencies are either without substantive operational heads or governing boards or both. Governing bodies of public sector entities need to establish effective organisational structures and processes to ensure that their statutory accountability is properly discharged; proper accountability for public money; clear communication with stakeholders; and clarity about roles and responsibilities of top management. The current situation of non-functional boards is a violation of the laws setting up those agencies and it gives room for abuse, corruption and irresponsibility.
It, therefore, remains curious why a President who claims to be committed to fighting corruption and ensuring due process continues to create an environment conducive to the very things he purports to be averse to.
But Buhari’s reluctance to do the right thing at the right time is not surprising. After his inauguration as President in May 2015 amid an impending economic recession, he did not form a cabinet until November, claiming in an interview with France 24 TV that ministers are only there to “make a lot of noise.”
After inaugurating the ministers, the President waited until December 2017 to appoint 209 chairmen and 1,258 members into the boards of agencies. Curiously, several dead individuals were among those that received appointments, thereby embarrassing the country.
The President’s attitude has also rubbed off on many of his ministers, who sometimes delay or refuse to inaugurate boards even after they have been duly appointed by the Federal Government. An example is the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, who refused to inaugurate the board of the Nigeria Social Investment Trust Fund in October 2017. Rather than inaugurate the board, Ngige set up a panel to probe the alleged fraud perpetrated by the previous management of the agency. Even after the panel had submitted its report in June 2018, Ngige still refused to inaugurate the board for another 11 months until his preferred candidate was appointed as the chairman in May 2019, thereby depriving the agency of a board for a total of 18 months.
The situation is worse in the aviation sector as its agencies – the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, the Nigeria Airspace Management Agency, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology and the Nigerian Meteorological Agency – have been left without boards since July 2015. Even after the President nominated persons into the boards in 2017, the then Minister of State for Aviation, Hadi Sirika, said they lacked the requisite qualifications as prescribed by the Act establishing the agencies and thus did not inaugurate them. This implies that Buhari made arbitrary appointments without taking the law into cognisance. Worse still, his refusal to make amends nearly three years after typifies his leadership ineptitude that Nigerians have painfully endured for the last five years.
Similarly, the National Human Rights Commission, which was established as a quasi-judicial organisation to safeguard the human rights of Nigerians, is gradually being rendered a sleepy backwater agency with the President’s refusal to appoint a governing council that should ratify investigations, decisions and provide political cover for the commission.
The importance of agencies having boards is that it limits the political interference of ministers, prevents arbitrary decisions of chief executives, and ensures that agencies of government run smoothly and professionally like their counterparts in the private sector.
Although inaugurating boards is not the silver bullet to stopping corruption in the public sector, the President must first show leadership by promoting due process and obeying the law. Strengthening existing critical institutions remains a conditio sine qua non for running a successful government. Former American President, Barack Obama, said during an address at an African Union summit, “There’s a lot that I’d like to do to keep America moving. But the law is the law, and no person is above the law, not even the president.” On a visit to Ghana, Obama declared, “Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions.” The scandal rocking the sleaze-infested Niger Delta Development Commission despite the President’s decision to appoint an interim board – rather than a substantive one – to clean up the agency is evidence that modern societies only progress on the back of strong institutions and not strong men.
Agencies of government are established to meet the needs of the people. Buhari, who claims to be an anti-corruption crusader, must therefore ensure that agencies run optimally and fulfil their mandate and this can only be achieved when they are properly set up.
Making appointments is not rocket science. It only requires giving the right job to the right people and ensuring that they pursue the agenda of the government in accordance with the law. While efforts should be made to ensure diversity in the composition of the boards, it is important for Buhari to rise above primordial sectionalism by promoting merit-based and transparent appointment process of governing boards. This will ensure that federal agencies perform optimally. The President must understand that making appointments is not optional, but mandatory by virtue of the office he holds and failure to do so is an abuse of the laws establishing these agencies.
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