The Criteria For Buhari’s Ministers

President Muhammadu Buhari’s two-month-long delay in presenting his list of ministers to the Senate for screening and confirmation has generated concern in many quarters over the direction of his administration as well as its workability. However, the recent report that 33 of 36 ministerial nominees failed the integrity test conducted by various organs of government adds a new twist to the circumstances of the forthcoming cabinet.

According to the report, routine background checks on the nominees by security agencies like the Nigeria Police, the Department of State Services (DSS), the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) revealed instances of past involvement in fraudulent activities, including misappropriation of public funds among other sins. This development is remarkable in many respects.

For the first time, at least since the return to civil rule in 1999, Nigerians can see a departure from the usual screening of nominees for political office that always returned them with a clean bill of health. Usually, any nominee scheduled for such security screening automatically came clean, his or her past sins notwithstanding. 

The situation was so graphic that even individuals that were known in the public domain as persons with questionable character were cleared by the security agencies involved.

The merit of the present development manifests in at least two dimensions. First, it demonstrates the extent of the collapse of values in our society and the associated rot in public service whereby many of the leading lights are actually villains who should be in jail.

Given the tradition through which ministerial nominees emerge, the failed nominees must have been persons of significant social standing with the much vaunted electoral value, but whose bases were actually built on questionable premises. Also, the development has sent a signal that nomination to public office, at least during the Buhari era, is not going to be business as usual.

With the emerging drama, however, the government should carefully identify and engage worthy Nigerians with the requisite criteria to occupy ministerial and other offices in the administration in order for the country to make progress. At least, they are available within and outside the country.
Besides, the development should serve, for the administration and the country, as a wake-up call for launching the clean-up of the socio-political system in pursuit of the change in the conduct of government business which we all desire for our nation. 

In the interest of equity, the treasury looters so identified by default should not go scot-free, but serve as the starting point of the cleansing programme of the administration.

by Leadership Editors