A former Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu, has said that the new ministers appointed by President Bola Tinubu are not better than those he sacked.
DAILY NIGERIAN reports that on Wednesday, Mr Tinubu sacked five ministers and appointed seven new ones.
Those affected by the sack are Uju-Ken Ohanenye as Minister of Women Affairs, Lola Ade-John as Minister of Tourism, Tahir Mamman as Minister of Education, Abdullahi Gwarzo as Minister of State for Housing and Urban Development, and Jamila Ibrahim as Minister of Youth Development.
However, Mr Shittu, who served during the first term of former President Muhammadu Buhari, said the cabinet shake-up implemented by the president was more politically motivated than bringing in superior minds.
Speaking during an interview on the Channels TV program on Thursday, Mr Shittu said: “If you look at the changes we had yesterday [Wednesday], I doubt whether it is necessarily bringing in superior minds or better minds, in terms of governance, in terms of expectations, in terms of performance.
“As far as I am concerned, it is just a case of some Nigerians being asked to move on; some other Nigerians are being brought in, which does not necessarily mean that those who have been shoved aside are inferior to the new people being brought in.”
According to him, the cabinet shake-up was a mere political ritual to appease displeased citizens.
“More often than not, it is not everybody who is appointed as a minister that fits in,” the former minister said.
“You’ll agree with me that because of the Nigerian factor, a lot of decisions have political colourations than meritocracy in determining who becomes a minister.”
Mr Shittu added that the new ministerial nominees must be thoroughly screened by the Senate as Nigerians don’t have the patience for trial-and-error ministers.
He said, “I would rather prefer that people are taken through a screening process to know their suitability.
“For instance, I make bold to say that today, we have an engineer as a minister of works. Any key watchers of events in the Ministry of Works would agree that the fact that the occupant of that position is a civil engineer impacts very positively on the assignment.
“If, for instance, I, as a lawyer, who has not had any training or any understanding of engineering, if I am to be posted to the works’ ministry, of course, it would take a lot of time to learn and Nigerians certainly don’t have too much time in such learning process.”
