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Ministerial screening blues 22 Oct 2015

On the first day of the ministerial screening, I observed that the Senate had made provisions for sign language interpreters as part of the media circus for the exercise. However, the television cameras failed to present clear views of the signing. In effect, the deaf community were unserved with the drama from the hallowed senate chamber.

I thought this was an oversight that would be corrected on day two of the screening; after all, the legislators always talk about their “oversight” functions and it was fair to expect that this would be brought to bear on matters within the chamber. But it was not to be.

Well, I must confess that I am not necessarily more interested in people who have auditory challenges. It is just that I have become quite fascinated with sign interpreters since the performance of Thamsanqa Jantjie during the memorial service for Dr. Nelson Mandela. The energetic, long signing by Mr. Jantjie turned out to be fake, foiled by bemused deaf people watching him!

Although we talk a lot about the problem of recycling political office-holders in Nigeria, I realised we cannot talk enough about it. When it was time for the screening of Khadija Abba Ibrahim, I became aware that she is a three-term member of the Federal House of Representatives from Yobe State. President Buhari nominated her for minister from the current lower chamber of the legislature. She had also been a commissioner in her state.

Before one could ask if she was the only one who has the qualifications to hold these positions from her constituency and state, one realised the monopolisation of power is a family thing. Her husband, Senator Bukar Abba Ibrahim, is a “three-term” governor of Yobe State. Even now, he sits pretty in the Senate as a member of the last three sessions of the upper legislative chamber. I really was very embarrassed for this couple on these discoveries. But I was just wasting my time.

When it was time to “grill” Mrs. Abba Ibrahim, her husband offered to be among her questioners and he was given the privilege of asking the first question(s). His question did not unfurl any issues that might have arisen from the domestic front as some mischief-makers would have wanted. The question Senator Abba Ibrahim had was not for his nominee wife; it was for his colleagues. The question please! Well, he asked if the distinguished senators would not mind to not do their job, by allowing his wife to just take a bow and go. Our distinguished senators acceded to the request.

This incident has been very helpful in understanding the level of immodesty that drives monopolisation of public office by a few people. Earlier, I had been very cynical of another nominee, Mr. Suleiman Hussaini Adamu from Jigawa State, who claimed he came from a long family tradition of public service. I asked: “To what outcome?”

We know that Yobe State has not made progress with the tradition of the Abba Ibrahims. The pass mark for students from Yobe State in the 2013 National Common Entrance Examination was 2, compared to 139 for students from Anambra State. My preliminary conclusion is that there is a strong correlation between underdevelopment and monopolisation of power.

We had thought the screening was for the ministerial nominees, really. It turned out it wasn’t. The screening was decidedly a walk in the park for nominee former senators. Those who didn’t have the privilege nevertheless bowed and left to pick their portfolios after answering simplistic questions simplistically. So far, there hasn’t been any casualty among the nominees on the floor of the senate. In effect, the nominees have passed the exam before they took it. All thanks to the current posturing that President Buhari must not be challenged on anything. Even a cowardly response to a question on the Boko Haram insurgency couldn’t stop the nominee from Oyo State, Adebayo Shittu. The man said he couldn't speak much against the insurgency in order to safeguard his personal and family security, ostensibly because some of the Northern leaders who did were killed by the insurgents.

Therefore, it was the senators themselves that are being “screened” by Nigerians watching the event. We found that our distinguished senators are mostly generalists. Their questions betray lack of technical knowledge of the various portfolios to be filled. They also mostly lack communication savvy. They asked simple questions with too many words. Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola, in one instance, asked nominee Kemi Adeosun six questions. The Senate President moderating the charade even allowed more questions before Mrs. Adeosun started to respond. Without having answered all the questions, and leaving out the crucial questions about what to do with AMCON, she said in exasperation: “I am done!” And as if the senators were not expecting their questions to be answered, they agreed she should take a bow and leave.

The lack of communication skill was also writ large on the ministerial nominees. But not all of them. The pattern I observed was that those who had significant exposure to foreign education or have worked abroad for some time, were the better communicators. This raises further concerns on our curriculum, especially in the public schools. But this issue will not be solved by tweaking the curriculum. We would have to reconsider our culture that actually forbids children from expressing themselves before adults. This impedes the development of communication skills early in our children. When seven-year old Timi Abayomi-Sadiku returned to the country after four years in the UK some years ago, she was way ahead of her Lagos-based school peers in communication. In my recent interview of Mustapha Danesi, a professor of neurology at Lagos University Teaching Hospital, he said Africa’s social environment impede all round development of the African brain. While we might be expressive as “educated” adults, we struggle with logical thinking and it shows in what we say.

This leads me to the monumental blunder of nominee Babatunde Fashola during his screening and the failure of most commentators to notice it. He was asked what his view was on loyalty. He responded with a contradictory thesis that says: “May your loyalty never be tested.” Believing he was building a valid argument, he cited a case of a Lagos mother who needed kidney transplant. The matching kidney was to come from any of her daughters, but none was willing to be a donor to her. Mr. Fashola went on to speculate that the test of our loyalty might mean we offer to take the bullet in place of our children.

So, is what he purported to be the meaning of loyalty correct? Absolutely not. His effusion was on, perhaps, love – what religious Nigerians would be quick to call sacrificial love.

Apart from having a “coward” in the cabinet, we would also be having a self-styled propagandist and a jester, rolled into one, as a minister of the Federal Republic. Without debunking his propagandist appellation, what Mr. Lai Mohammed offered during his “screening” were wisecracks. He said he would not want the current government to receive the propaganda sticks he used against the last administration as the mouthpiece of the opposition!