By Enyichukwu Enemanna
A former Minister of Communications has accused the immediate past President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari of poorly supervising members of his cabinet.
Adebayo Shittu who was a member of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) in Buhari’s first tenure which spanned 2015-2019 said Buhari “rarely supervised” his cabinet members.
“What I do know of Buhari, with all due respect to him, is that he is a more reserved person. He’s one person who gives you job (with due respect to him) and he rarely ask how you are going about it. It’s unfortunate but I have to say this in national interest so that government coming after him will learn lessons. Once you are there, you are there.
“In Buhari’s government, if you don’t go and meet him, for the next four years, he probably would not ask of you”, he stated during a live TV interview on Wednesday.
He therefore encouraged President Bola Tinubu administration to learn from the past government and do better in terms of the coordination and supervision of his ministers.
Tinubu, on Wednesday, while declaring open, a three-day Cabinet Retreat at the State House Conference Centre in Abuja, challenged his 48 ministers to deliver on their responsibilities or get sacked.
Shittu lauded Tinubu for putting his cabinet members on pressure to deliver. The ex-minister said the President should not hesitate to sack ineffective members of his cabinet.
Reminiscing further about his time as minister during the first term of the Buhari administration, Shittu said, “Buhari did not give anybody any threat as such. As I said, Buhari is not Tinubu and Tinubu is not Buhari.”
“Every Wednesday (cabinet meeting days) people bring their memos and they are debated and all of that but in terms of policy formulation and supervision, we rarely did have such things and I am happy that President Tinubu is trying to do things differently.
“In his statement today, that is a sign that he (Tinubu) wants to do things differently. What I think he needs to add to it is to create transparent, quantifiable milestones for each ministry.”
