As Buhari’s cabinet comes on board

After six clear months of prevarication, President Muhammadu Buhari will today swear in his ministers and hold his inaugural Federal Executive Council meeting with them. It has been long in coming, and the cost of the long absence of a cabinet has been huge on the economy.

So far, apart from the so-called “presidential body language” and talks about fighting corruption and plugging revenue leakages, there is as yet no clear policy direction on the economy from the government. As a result, the initial investor confidence in Nigeria brought about by the peaceful political transition has long reversed, giving way to anxiety and uncertainty.

The negative sentiment has been evident in the persistent drop in the stock market capitalisation and the NSE All Share Index. Foreign investments have virtually ceased as intending investors adopted a wait-and-see approach. This has been compounded by the precipitous decline of crude oil prices, the escalating costs of fuel subsidy payments, and the president’s penchant for a state-led economic development – an approach that has failed all over the world to promote economic growth and is now thoroughly discredited.

In the face of daunting economic realities, we had expected the president to prioritise the economy and appoint a highly competent and visionary team of economic experts to help chart a new focus and recovery plan for the economy. Sadly, apart from a few, there is a glaring absence of economic experts in the list of the approved ministers. We may well agree with Olu Fasan, a UK-based lawyer and political economist, that “the weakest link in the technocratic mix of the Buhari cabinet is the economic team”. And the consequence is that “if the market believes the president is weak on the economy and that he also has a weak economic team…that would be damaging to Nigeria’s credibility with the international financial community”.

That said, President Buhari has constituted his cabinet, and we can only urge the ministers to settle down immediately to duty and begin the difficult tasks of setting policy directions aimed at tackling the nation’s many daunting challenges, especially in finance, agriculture, petroleum, power, trade and investment, solid minerals, education, health, and infrastructure.

In our view, the most pressing demands appear to be in the area of revamping the economy and setting it back on the path of growth. Here, the minister of finance must take the lead in charting a new course for a diversified economy. New avenues of revenue generation must be found and exploited urgently. The new finance minister must be deeply concerned about major economic indicators such as inflation, GDP, interest rate, debt profile, among others. Working with other relevant ministers, the finance minister must draw up a programme of action to turn Nigeria into a self-sufficient economy and take our teeming youths out of the job market.

Furthermore, there is need to revamp the education sector. Equally, the gains made in the agriculture sector in the last dispensation need to be sustained. Issues around petrol subsidy, full deregulation of the oil sector and the long-stalled Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) need to be sorted out. And there is an urgent need to consolidate the power sector privatisation, stabilise power supply and sort out customer issues such as metering and tariffs.

We, therefore, call on the new ministers, as they assume duty, to fearlessly display patriotism and loyalty to the nation. They must respond to the urgency of the moment and avoid the temptation of becoming court jesters to the president. They, no doubt, have a difficult task ahead, working with a president who probably believes he has seen it all and knows it all and who already holds a view on how he thinks the state should be organised and run.

In spite of everything, however, Nigeria’s broken economy must be fixed, and the task of fixing it has been placed on the laps of the new ministers. They cannot afford to fail. We wish them well in their new assignments.