While the cabinet was not promptly constituted in the first instance, and never quite met the radical expectations of the public, a much larger problem of laxity and confusion enveloped the nation
As Nigeria marks her 60th Independence Anniversary, a significant part of the discourse will centre on national development, President Muhammadu Buhari himself, and to some extent, his team. It has been some five tumultuous years since the President assumed office at a time of huge but unmet expectations.
For those five years, there has been no consensus on how steadily and progressively the government has steered the ship of state. There have been controversies about the representativeness and effectiveness of the cabinet, and there have been animated discussions about the patriotism of the President’s kitchen cabinet. Also, there has been a greater and even more intense controversy about the direction of the Buhari Presidency itself, with the late Mr Abba Kyari, Chief of Staff (CoS) to the President, a central focus.
It was in the midst of the search for regime clarity and unresolved questions about who or what constitutes the fulcrum of the administration that the then serving CoS passed away.
As CoS, Abba Kyari, had assumed a central role in the administration and indeed became its lightning rod. The President was thought to be very distant from the hurting populace, even somewhat ineffective, aloof and uninformed, and had in the general supposition of the public abdicated his responsibilities to the late Mr Kyari. Soon after the administration assumed office in 2015, the economy stirred, and never was fully grounded nor stable, in the first place. But it had hastily hurtled itself into the depths of a harsh recession.
President Buhari, naturally, was who was blamed. While the cabinet was not promptly constituted in the first instance, and never quite met the radical expectations of the public, a much larger problem of laxity and confusion enveloped the nation and cast doubt about the cohesion and readiness of the administration to govern about 200 Million very energetic and boisterous peoples.
In short, it took a few years before the ship of state steadied, and even then it always seemed poised to keel over due to widespread animosities and internal struggles for influ- ence within the administration and among ap- pointees. Whatever progress was made, it arrived against the backdrop of these fierce and weird struggles, most of the time, and all motions always seemed worrisomely tentative.
After a while, the economy began to grow again, but it never seemed too far away from slipping back into recession. Railway lines were be- ing constructed, but there was no consensus whether this was not at a dispiriting cost in external loans. Roads and bridges, long neglected by previous administrations, were also being built. But there were misgivings about their costs and geopolitical representativeness. The administration functioned as a modern government, but the internecine battles between functionaries gave it away as less cohesive and effective than it seemed or was desired.
While these demons and many other militating factors that plagued the administration have not been fully propitiated, new appointments in the past few months have appeared to mollify the centrifugal forces neutralising growth, stability and progress. Improvements have been slow and sometimes desultory, but at least there is evident and positive change of direction.
The heat and tensions of the past few years seem slowly to be giving way to tentative cohesion and administrative effectiveness. There was, of course, nothing inevitable about this change of direction. Indeed, everything seemed to be entirely fortuitous, particularly with the choice of, and appointment of a new CoS whose training and temperament are markedly different from his predecessor’s. Our Mr President chose well.
A little less than a month after the passing of Mr Kyari in April, the President appointed, as CoS, Ibrahim Gambari, a Professor of International Relations, outstanding scholar and long-standing diplomat with grit and gravitas plus global repu- tation. Like his predecessor, the new presiden- tial gatekeeper had announced to a nation wary of the unaccustomed powers now inherent in that important office that he would be proudly loyal to the President and would work from the back- ground, probably often seen but seldom heard.
He would be the engine room, as well as the brain box, of the Presidency like his predecessor, he clearly and matter-of-factly stated. But earlier in April, close aides and friends of the President who were mortified by the passing of Mr Kyari had indeed publicly wondered whether the late CoS had not left behind large shoes no one could step into. They tremulous- ly suggested that the late CoS had redefined that office, made it idiosyncratic to himself, and set the bar inordinately high, all but sug- gesting that he had set a benchmark which no one, let alone a mortal, could aspire to, ever.
Though it is too early to conclude, so far, all that puffing and grandstanding, translated to nothing, and Prof Gambari has hit the ground running in probably the most unobtrusive and confident manner imaginable. He gives the wholesome impression that he understands the pitfalls of the office, the snares that had made many Nigerians, including supporters of the President, fearful of the superfluous aggrega- tion of power into that office to the point of seeming to be subversive of the constitution.
Consequently, Gambari has worked very smartly to reassure both the Presidency and the public that as a systems man, he understands the role of the CoS, and will do his best to play d power game very effectively, and without causing offence; except for d ruination of any cluster of rude malcontents. Not being a politician, nor at the advanced age of 75, would the latest CoS, be eyeing or aiming for a higher office.
He thus preferred working behind the scene to streamline the operations of the Presidency, reconcile warring and sometimes egotistic appointees, as he now stringently control the tightened access to the President on a need-to basis. There is still much work to be done, but at least a fair and profitable beginning has been achieved.
Without any doubt, the new CoS is a stern and consummate diplomat, as well as a sharp and severe academic. He recognises that in the past five years of the Buhari Administration, many power centres had become inextricably interwoven with the highest office in the land, some of those power centres so implacable that it is pointless attempting to disentangle them from the seat of power.
