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By Omoniyi Salaudeen
For the exigency of time, as well as the intricate challenge of the socio-economic problems confronting the country, there is no gainsaying that the newly inaugurated cabinet of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has an enormous responsibility on its hands not only to deliver on the renewed hope agenda of his administratio, but to also speedily do so within the shortest possible time with human face. This imperative draws from the urgent need to pull back the nation from the tipping point it is currently.
Already aware of the limit of the degree of elasticity of citizen’s endurance, Tinubu himself didn’t mince words on this while administering the oath of office on 45 ministers-designate, when he said: “The challenges we face today are very daunting, but we have the opportunity to implement long overdue reforms.”
Prior to his swearing-in ceremony on May 29 along with his vice, Kashim Shettima, he had promised to hit the ground running. And to that effect, he has initiated a raft of reforms aimed at revitalising the economy and investment profile, but the policy measures have caused an unexpected increase in the cost of living. While some public affairs analysts are optimistic that the calibre of people recruited to man the critical sectors would deliver on his electoral promises to the electorate, others maintain a cynical disposition about the antecedents and pedigree of the individual members of the new cabinet. All in all, the consensus is on the need for the administration to speedily deliver the deliverables within the shortest possible time.
Some of the crucial ministries that are outlined to lead the charge include the Finance and Coordinating Ministry of the Economy, Education, Agriculture, and Transport, among others.
Economy
For a quick reversal of the parlous state of the economy inherited from the previous administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, all eyes are now on the Minister of Finance, Mr Wale Edun, whom many have described as a round peg in a round hole.
Wale, a former Lagos State Commissioner for Finance, is a revered Economist with a wide range of experience cutting across merchant banking, international and corperate finance. Other than his 25-year experience as a merchant banker, he had also worked with the World Bank, where he developed financial packages for several countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, including the Dominican Republic and Trinidad, as well as Indonesia and India. He is also a Co-founder and Executive Director of Stanbic IBTC Plc (formerly Investment Banking & Trust Company Limited).
As Minister of Finance, his functions include, among others, determination of Federal Government fiscal policies, mobilization of domestic and external financial resources for national development purposes, as well as management of foreign exchange reserves.
The onus is on him to leverage his wealth of experience to initiate reform policies that would change the trajectory of the nation’s economy. At present, Nigerians are grappling with inflation and the high cost of food items occasioned by the sudden removal of subsidy, as well as the unification of the multiple foreign exchange rates which has led to the continued dwindling value of the naira vis-à-vis the dollar. As JP Morgan report for August already stated: “A combination of foreign exchange forwards, securities lending, currency swaps, and outstanding contracts has weakened Nigeria’s net external reserves to an all-time low of $3.7 billion as of the end of last year”, stressing the need for the new administration to implement reforms that will attract steady external funding in the short term.. “We estimate that CBN’s net FX reserves were around $3.7 billion at the end of last year, from US$14.0 billion at end-2021,” JP Morgan said.
According to the report, Nigeria is in desperate need of dollars to boost its declining external reserves and prop up the value of the naira.
Prof Segun Ajibola, in his analysis of the outlook of the economy, expressed confidence that Tinubu and his team would bring corporate world experience to bear on the onerous task of governance.
“It is the signal from the leadership as represented by the president that will dictate what happens at other levels of the economy. When the signal shows commitment, drive, action, political will, and courage to change things, it will simmer down. So, it is the body language of the man at the top and the capacity to work the talk that determines what happens subsequently.
“From the little we have seen so far, I am not sure that anybody who wants to be part of this administration must be ready and committed to move with jet speed to do the right thing and to flow along with the leadership,” he said.
To get the economy out of the woods, he urged the Federal Government to place measures in place that would enhance productive capacity, reduce dependence on importation, and reform tax administration, among others.
“There is what someone referred to as imported inflation, which is part of our problems because we are vulnerable to imported items, including food. If there is inflationary pressure from the countries of origin of those products, they will be imported to our side. That will further complicate the value of our currency.
“To mitigate the effects of the external variables on the domestic economy, the government must curtail the inflationary trend; put restrictions on importation, and also increase the productive capacity of both the manufacturing and agricultural sectors.
“To curtail the rate of inflation, therefore, we have to import less by producing what we eat so that we can take away the burdens associated with imported inflation significantly. The government should generate more power to reduce reliance on diesel so that the cost-push inflation will also be manageable. We need to create incentives for the various sectors of the economy, manage the tax regime, and control inflation, as well as the foreign exchange market,” Ajibola posited.
Education
Education plays a pivotal role in the overall development effort of a nation. One of the main purposes of education is to provide the opportunity to acquire knowledge and skills that will enable people to develop their full potential and become successful members of society.
Unfortunately, during the eight-year tenure of the Buhari administration, the sector was treated with reckless abandon under the then Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, who had to confess at the twilight of the past regime that he knew nothing about how to manage the ministry. Until he left, there was no single policy measure to assign the education sector the rightful place it deserves in the development agenda of the government.
Instead, his ineptitude combined with Buhari’s obstinacy resulted in a prolonged industrial action by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), leading to the loss of one full academic session in all the Federal Government -owned institutions.
For an assured future for the youths of the country who are desirous of quality education, it is, therefore, imperative for the new Minister of Education, Prof Tahir Mamman, to convene an all-inclusive stakeholders’ meeting where the challenges facing the sector would be analysed and the solution proffered for the good of the nation.
To be clear, Tahir Mamman (SAN) is a renowned educational administrator and a Professor of law, and immediate past Vice Chancellor of the Baze University, Abuja, as well as a member of the governing board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). Before his appointment, he had served as Director-General of the Nigeria Law School from 2005 to 2013. In 2010, he became a board member of the International Association of Law Schools based in Washington DC.
With his depth knowledge of the industry combined with his experience, optimism is high that he will bring a change of narrative to the entire spectrum of the education sector. One of the policy thrusts of the present administration is the introduction of student loans which has continued to generate controversy among the stakeholders. The initiative followed the signing into law of the 2023 Student Loan Act by President Tinubu. While the Federal Government is insisting on the financial autonomy for the universities as a step towards the revilisation of tertiary education, parents and students are campaigning for the sustenance of free and qualitative education for all.
The Deputy National President of the National Parents Teachers Association of Nigeria (NAPTAN), Chief Adeolu Ogunbanjo, barring his mind on the issue in a telephone conversation with Sunday Sun, listed a number of measures the Federal Government must put in place to reclaim the ailing sector.
His words: “I would like to see the honourable minister making education affordable for Nigerians in these our times, in this regime of subsidy removal. I would like him to fully implement the tuition-free agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and be prudent with the funds supplied by the TETFund.
“I will also want a situation where the honourable minister will pay attention to tertiary institutions being funded very well through prudent management of TETFund. I want to see fewer ASUU strikes as long as they pay them regularly and make funds available to them. I like the minister to lobby the Federal Government to get more than 10 per cent of the national annual budget to fund the education sector. All these years, education had got less than 10 per cent of the budget at the federal level. Those are the changes I want him to address.”
Agriculture
For obvious reasons, the Ministry of Agriculture holds the key to the stability of the polity under the present government in view of the rising food inflation amid the hardship of the subsidy removal. It will be recalled that the Federal Government had earlier declared a state of emergency on food security.
Therefore, one of the immediate concerns of the new Minister of Agriculture, Abubakar Kyari, should be to develop detailed strategies or modalities for the implementation of the policy, bearing in mind his mandate to drive food security for the country. Since the announcement of the policy, the declaration of a state of emergency has continued to resonate among different stakeholders along the food production and the value chain. The National Secretary of All Farmers’ Association of Nigeria, Dr Yunusa Halidu, in an interview with Sunday Sun, commended the president’s bold initiative, describing it as a welcome development.
He, however, urged the Federal Government to set up an all-inclusive committee to work with the farmers to monitor the success of the policy implementation.
He said: “There is food insecurity because a lot of people have abandoned farming for other businesses. This administration must set up relevant committees that will include the farmers’ organizations in Nigeria, the smallholder farmers, the service providers, the input providers, and other stakeholders because there has been a missing link between the farmers and the service providers. With that, there will be a strong synergy between the farmers, the service providers, and the security agencies. If there is an understanding among the various stakeholders, everything will work.
“Farming has been politicized, that is why everything went wrong. But with this, if everybody is brought together under one roof to discuss with one mind, we are going to see the success of the project,” he enthused.
To surmount the challenge of insecurity which is a major threat to farming activities, Halidu called on all relevant stakeholders to join hands with the Federal Government to tackle the problems of terrorism, banditry, and kidnapping, among others.
“We know, of course, that insecurity is the primary problem of food self-sufficiency. Security is everybody’s concern; it is not only for the government. That is why I said that all the relevant stakeholders, the security agencies, the farmers, politicians, and community leaders, should be brought together to find a solution. It’s a very simple problem,” he posited.
Transportation
One of the challenges the new Minister of Transport, Hon. Sa’idu Alkali, has to frontally deal with is the rising cost of movement of goods, as well as commuters. The backlash of subsidy removal has made it necessary for the Federal Government to reform the transport ministry to mitigate the hardship of the new price regime of petroleum products.
President Tinubu upon the announcement of the removal at his inauguration ceremony had promised to provide palliatives for the vulnerable segment of the society and review minimum wage for the workers, among other initiatives. However, the actual rollout of the palliatives seems to be taking forever while the masses groan in pain under the high cost of transportation.
Part of the immediate policy measure now being pursued is the proposed plan to roll out CNG-powered mass transit buses to make transportation more affordable. For this initiative, the Federal Government is projecting a cost of N250 per litre for Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) as an alternative to Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) otherwise called petrol.
The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, said the policy chaired by the Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, will roll out 11,500 new CNG vehicles in the near term, focusing on mass transit systems across all states of the federation.
Nigerians can’t wait for this to happen as the effect of subsidy removal is already taking a better part of the disposable income of individuals and households.
