Alhaji Tanko Yakasai (OFR) is an elder statesman and prominent politician. He bares his mind on the president recently… “President Muhammadu Buhari was once the Head of State over 30 years ago, and clearly, since he didn’t leave on his own, he wanted to come back to that position. From 2003 when he declared his ambition to run for President till date, it is 13 years. After he got elected, we saw how long it took him to appoint a secretary to the government and chief of staff. Someone spent 13 years looking for job, then he gets it, and it takes him months to appoint two critical office holders for the administration.”
“He also took a long time before appointing ministers, and when people started complaining that there was a delay in nominating ministers, the reply given was that the president was carefully looking for the best material. If we had to end up with the type of ministers in his cabinet, why did it take him so long? There are far better materials than most of the members of his cabinet.”
“When he finally appointed ministers, he then mismatched the few good ones among them. For instance, Senator Udo Udoma is a good lawyer, why not make him the Attorney-General? I have nothing against the current Attorney-General; I don’t even know him until he was appointed. But why make Udoma planning minister? An area where he has no expertise?”
“You don’t get experts in theory to give you a prograamme; a programme is a product of experience. So if it is somebody who has no experience that will give you a programme; there is a disconnect. This is the reason why the APC has no programme.”
“What is the blueprint of the ‘change’ programme? If there is like you said there is, why did it take the President so long to get his economic team? Why is it that he is now telling them to propose ideas into how they are going to manage the economy, there should already be a blueprint for each ministry. In fact, that blueprint should be the basis for the nomination or a person into a ministry. That is why I am now advocating that from now on, nomination of ministerial appointment should go with the area where the minister is going to be posted so that the members of the National Assembly can verify whether he is competent enough, if it is ministry of communication, to handle the ministry.”
“They got it wrong from the very beginning. When you are looking for power, you must be prepared. If you are lucky to get that power, know what you are going to do with it. If it takes you six months to appoint the Secretary to the Government, it means you are not ready; you did not prepare. So, where they got it wrong is that they had no economic plan, and till today, they have not unfolded any plan. The plan they have is just a makeshift plan which they are just developing the plan. So, they are learning on the job.”
– Culled from The SUN