Appointing ministers in pectore

Speaking to Media Trust editors at his Daura country home last week President-elect Muhammadu Buhari said no cabinet list exists. He said, “I am not speaking about it. I have not put anything on paper so nobody has seen it and I haven’t discussed it with anybody. I am just keeping it close to my […]

Speaking to Media Trust editors at his Daura country home last week President-elect Muhammadu Buhari said no cabinet list exists. He said, “I am not speaking about it. I have not put anything on paper so nobody has seen it and I haven’t discussed it with anybody. I am just keeping it close to my chest.” That is very interesting. Buhari was elected on March 28, that is seven weeks ago and he is still keeping the names of his prospective cabinet appointees very close to the chest. In the early hours of November 9, 1988 when George Bush Senior stepped forward to claim victory in the American presidential election, he announced that he would nominate his campaign manager and long time friend James Baker as Secretary of State. It could be that Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, the game-changing director general of Buhari’s campaign, expected a similar rapid-fire appointment soon after Buhari answered Jonathan’s concession phone call, but never mind.
The matter of an incoming president playing sensitive political cards very close to his chest is likely to become a hot topic in Nigerian political science in years to come. I was wondering whether the president-elect borrowed an old tradition of the Roman Catholic Church to make key appointments in pectore, that is, in the chest. In 2003 Pope John Paul II appointed some cardinals but the name of one of them was kept secret. The Vatican said the Holy Father made the appointment in his chest. Neither the clergyman concerned nor anyone else was ever told who the appointee was and his appointment lapsed when the pope died.
Now, I am not saying that our incoming president would do that because at some point he must send a list of ministerial nominees to the Senate for screening and approval. Even before that he must send the names to the security agencies for pre-nomination screening, at which point eagle-eyed reporters will spot the nominees stepping into SSS’ offices. The issue here is, if the president-elect has not made up his mind on who to appoint as ministers with only a week to his inauguration, will his administration hit the ground running as many Nigerians want?
In the same interview with Media Trust editors, Buhari gave an insight into why he is keeping things under wraps. He said, “I am an ardent listener of Hausa Service of Voice of America (VOA) and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) from 6am to 7am every morning. I am going to quote myself because I heard in one of the interviews that I said the type of people I am supposed to appoint, like in the cabinet and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and service chiefs, will be different. Definitely my approach is going to be different from what we had under the PDP where governors nominated ministers.” That is very important; he said he will change the way that ministers have been appointed in Nigeria over the years but he mentioned only one concrete way in which he is going to do this, i.e. that ministerial nominations will no longer emanate from state governors [APC ones, that is].
President-elect Buhari said if state governors are at liberty to appoint their commissioners, he too should be at liberty to choose those who would serve with him in the Federal Executive Council. This statement sounds very logical, except that governors too are not entirely at liberty to choose the persons they want to serve as their commissioners. Any governor would be very lucky if he gets to pick half a dozen men and women of his liking to serve in his cabinet. What usually happens is that commissionerships are bargained away one by one during the primary season, during the campaign and during the elections. Some people are promised cabinet positions so that they agree to step down for other persons. Other persons are offered the posts in order to secure their considerable electoral support. Still other posts are awarded beforehand to godfathers who make substantial contributions to the election victory, for them to award to their chosen ones.
The way things have worked thus far in Nigerian politics, the minister’s position too is bargained away during the scheming to produce the governorship candidate. It is either awarded to a powerful party figure who stepped down for the governor, or it is awarded to a person who played a key role in ensuring the governor’s victory either at the primaries or in the main election. Even though Buhari tends to see it as a PDP tradition, I think it very much has to do with the Nigerian political condition.
The only thing is, there is an important difference between PDP and APC in terms of the flow of electoral power. PDP, like NPN before it, rose to power at the Federal level as a result of the ability of many independently-functioning and self-financing state branches to deliver their states’ votes to its presidential candidate. As such, the president must respect the deals that were made along the way to enable this success to be achieved. In Buhari’s case, most APC governors and legislators essentially rode to power clinging to his long electoral coattails. As such he can claim a measure of independence from most APC state branches and governors. I said most, but not all. The South West was a different ball game. APC won the key region not due to Buhari’s personal appeal but due to the efficacy of the APC party machine. The president-elect does not therefore have the moral right to assert his independence from the Tinubu machine where South West issues are concerned.
What kind of ministers is the president-elect looking for that he feels he should source outside party ranks? In the Media Trust interview he said he was still looking around for the kind of persons who could help to transform the country. He said, “I have been around long enough to know people that I can approach for things like that… Deliberately we will look for competent people, dedicated and experienced to head ministries and of course, there will be schedules for ministers and we will expect them to fill them. Economically we will try and stop a lot of wastages and encourage austerity so that we can fund the ministries. Education and healthcare will get more attention. Of course security is Number One. Certainly there is a lot to do but we are hoping that we ‘ll get good people to be in charge of ministries who can apply themselves to their responsibilities so that in no time Nigerians would begin to see the difference.”
The president-elect seemed to be implying here that the best hands to man the key ministries are apolitical technocrats. Well, Nigerian politics has witnessed an influx of technocrats of all callings since 1999, much more than was the case in any previous republic. It is now possible to find politicians with the technocratic skills to man most of the ministries. In any case, the Constitution says every minister must have the qualifications required to stand for election into the House of Representatives; one of such qualifications is membership of a political party.
To have a cabinet made up mostly of technocrats is a risk in itself. Ministers serve purposes other than competent running of ministries. An otherwise able technocrat may be at his wit’s end when political trouble comes along, as it must. In any case, if APC ends the tradition of rewarding political contribution with key appointments, who will man its campaign teams in 2019?