President Muhammadu Buhari loves to poke fun at those who call him ‘Baba Go-Slow’.
Pulse Opinion: Dear Buhari, how long should we wait for your ministers this time?
It took us six months to know President Buhari's ministers in 2015. How many months are we allowed during 'Next Level'?
President Buhari prays at the mosque in Abuja [Daily Advent]
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![Vice President Kashim Shettima [Presidency]](data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf8,%3Csvg%20xmlns%3D'http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg'%20width%3D'100'%20height%3D'100'%20data-ring-placeholder%3D'1'%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E "Vice President Kashim Shettima [Presidency]")
“In some quarters now, they are calling me ‘Baba go slow…I am going to go slow and steady”, the president said to general laughter from his audience in September of 2015.
On the eve of his inauguration for a second term in office, the president vowed to prove wrong, critics who regard him as a ponderous, dithering old man.
“Those who call me ‘Baba go slow’ will see whether I am slow or fast (in my second term)”, Buhari said.
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President Buhari presides over valedictory federal executive council meeting in May (Presidency)
Pulse Nigeria
When asked to explain further, he went: “It means I will persuade the police and the judiciary to be hard and where I uncover that they are not hard, I will find out who is responsible for the slowness in terms of command from the DPO upwards”.
It’s been two weeks since Buhari swore an oath of office for a second term on the saddle and he’s yet to convince anyone that he’s a changed, faster man.
Not one appointment has been made by Buhari since May 29, 2019 and a cabinet that should have been ready on Day 1 of his second term presidency, is nowhere to be found. Further proof that old habits die hard.
President Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) loved to tell everyone who cared to listen that it took them six months to name a cabinet in 2015 because the outgoing Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) administration left them with shoddy handover notes or nothing to work with. So they had to build their own foundation and structures from the cradle because it was akin to landing on mud in 2015, they said.
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Muhammadu Buhari during second term swearing-in ceremony at the Eagle Square (Facebook/Femi Adesina)
Facebook/Femi Adesina
In May, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, said the nation won’t have to wait six months for Buhari’s second term team.
“What makes it better is that the leadership of the outgoing government is the same as the incoming one. The circumstances are no longer the same. So, there would be no delay. When you land in the mud of poor and delayed handover notes as happened in 2015, with a vandalised economy and a polity with different types of challenges, the delay would be understandable. But now, we have the good fortune of transition from government to government headed by the same President and Vice President, things can then be done more expeditiously”, Adesina said.
I was half expecting the new Senate President Ahmad Lawan and Speaker of the House Femi Gbajabiamila to commence plenary on Thursday, June 13, with the announcement that they had received a proposed ministerial list from President Buhari and would commence the constitutionally required screening process as soon as possible.
That would have been “hitting the ground running” in a manner of speaking. After all, Gbajabiamila announced the appointment of his own Chief of Staff during his first few minutes on the job.
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Sen. Ovie Omo-Agege and Ahmad Lawan after they were elected on June 11, 2019 (Presidency)
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The president’s defenders would react to this essay by saying there’s still plenty of time left and that he’s not even a month into his second term on the job and that we should lay off his back, bla...bla...bla. But therein lies the problem. A president who has spent four years already should have his team ready to swing into action in the first few weeks of his second stint. Where is the urgency? Where is the body language that shows this president intends to get things done as quickly as possible?
Buhari should have known who will be working with him in his second term, during the electioneering campaigns. That he apparently didn’t, opens a window into the man’s mindset and reveals exactly how he loves to work and why Nigeria is still stuck in the mess he inherited from Jonathan.
Nigeria has no time for these kinds of delays. Whatever anyone says, ministers are still pivotal to policy formulation and program implementation on the ground. They aren’t just “noise makers” like Buhari once referred to them. By not naming these ministers, Buhari is delaying governance and putting a halt to the infrastructure projects kicked off in his first term.
A serious president who knows just how much work there is left to be done, a president who oversees the affairs of a country that has been designated as the poverty capital of the world, a president who knows that unemployment numbers are hitting the roof on his watch and that the economy has been on a downward spiral for as long as anyone can remember, shouldn’t be fiddling and wondering why anyone calls him Baba Go Slow. There is no time to check time.
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In the words of Small Doctor, “Buhari, Ji masun”.
Or as Zlatan would put it, Ejo, Buhari, Gbe body e! or Kurombe!
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