 All right it's time for our first hot topic and a social psychologist Dr. Law, May 4, has joined me this morning to take a look at the lists, well the portfolios assigned to Tinnable's ministerial list. Those who were brought out, screened and have successfully made the list and now we now have their portfolios. What offices should they be handling? Now we know. We've been wanting to know. Now we know and Mr. Law may forward joining me to take a look at some takeaways from this list released by the president. Hello Mr. Law may for good to have you join us. Thank you for hosting me. Thank you for joining us. Well you've seen that list. It's no longer speculative stuff. It's no longer speculation. It has led to a very more speculation to reality. The second secretary to the government of the Federation Mr. George Akume released it on Wednesday and they'll be swanning on Monday. They'll be swanning on Monday and so we saw some very strange things there. 33 ministries is now what we have as against 27 that we had under the former administration. New ministries have been created. Ministries like the Marine and Blue Economy, Ministry of Art Culture and Creative Economy. So these are some of the new ministries that have been created. We also have for the first time in 47 years, Salzana being the minister for the FCT, Nisamuike, the former governor, immediate past governor of River State. Talk to us about what you've seen. What are your take aways from the list as we've seen it so far? Yeah, well I think the list is not, let me just say the way the French would describe a moment like this. It's a social list, not too bad. It's an average list and deployments also, not quite, should I say, let me not say, uninspiring. But I see too many square pegs and round goals. First let me start with where I think the president got here, right? About four to five deployments. I think the deployment of Waleidu to economy as Minister of Finance is quite appropriate. Deployment of Professor Mokar, the former DG of Law School, and former VC of Basic Investing to Education is quite appropriate. I think also that the deployment of one or two other people is very, quite fairly appropriate. But I see there are some people really who have in other positions. For example, Tele Alake. For me, it's just the natural man in that team to run information for me. I say so because he is a very accomplished journalist, very accomplished and he knows his way around public and strategic communication. So I would have preferred that he is deployed to information rather than to solid minarets because I don't know what he will be doing in solid minarets as a matter of fact. I don't know. Then I also, you know, somebody like Bosum. Bosum Tijani is a global figure where he comes to ICT. His deployment to communication is quite apt. That is where he should go. But, you know, the problems we have in the country, I don't see strategic deployment. That really points to the fact that if President is strategically determined to solve many of those, for example, insecurity. The Minister of Defense and the Minister of State for Defense. You know, a large, you know, the main minister is Baguto and his former governor, I think, then you have a Metawale, former governor of Zanvara. Is the Minister of State's Defense, while Mohamed Badaru's Minister of Defense? Badaru is the main minister. Then a Metawale is the junior minister there, so to speak. I have a problem with the two of them being deployed to defense. You know, you see, in psychology, the best way we predict somebody's future behavior is by looking at the past. And Metawale particularly failed in security in Zanvara. So I don't know what is bringing to the table as, you know, the Minister of State for Defense, that for me is a big problem. And we need to confront insecurity squarely. And I have expected some other personnel that are not Badaru and Metawale, for me, is the dance. That's the mismatch. They look at the case of the professor, the case of Abubaka Momo. He is the one in charge of youths. Momo, from his profile, is no less than 63 years. For me, it's wrong. You know, say, if you look at the generational gap between him as an elder statesman, because let me tell you, senior citizenship starts from the age 60. So even if Momo is 63, he is not a youth by any stretch of imagination or definition. So you mean that you can't find a vibrant youth, even from the least, that term we have at the moment. I can see one or two youthful, the minister designates that about a 40 that could have been deployed to that ministry. But they are sent to somewhere else. I had expected, what's the name of this lady that is sent to a ministry of humanitarian affairs. She is about 40, and she could have made a very huge difference, sending a woman to the ministry of youth and a youth at that. See, for me, I have also described the relationship between women and the youth as inseparable to us. I see the two as just made for each other. And the president taking a lady that is about 40 or under 40, because he has one or two of them in his list, told youth, rather than a point that an elder statesman has, he used to say minister. For me, it's a very serious mismatch. And it's out on the youthful population of Nigeria. It permit me to use that word. For me, it's very excessive. The president ought to appoint a youth. We have very competent youths in Nigeria, very, very competent. ICT compliant, go to the ICT world and see what Nigeria youth are doing there. They are all over the world, doing wonders. And you brought in an analog man, an analog politician, a man that is already heading towards his departure lunch, you know, as the youth minister. It's wrong. It doesn't show that the president really values the youth population. And don't forget, the population of Nigeria is predominantly youth. So that is where you have the reservoir, the working population, that you need to really galvanize. You need somebody who is youthful. You need somebody who is a youth. You need somebody who can speak the language of the youth. Professor Memo cannot. Professor Memo has been a politician, he's been in the dance of reps for two times. He ran for senate two times or so and five. And he left APC for PDP and back and now. This is just a competition. I don't think it's right. You think the president missed a good opportunity to kind of reconcile with the youth, connect with the youth? That's the point I'm making. The president himself cannot do it. He doesn't have the time, he doesn't have age on his side. You need somebody who can mix, mingle with these people, speak their language. I would not be surprised if Professor Memo has not checked his email in the last one month. Well you can't say for sure. You can't say for sure. I'm very serious about this. You need, you see, you have the people who are the youth today are the GNS, Generation C. That is the truth. So whoever is more than 40 cannot run the affairs of the youth effectively. It does not matter how we work. See, the spirit may be willing but the body will not be able to do some of these things. You need to engage the youth. You need to call them out, engage them. We have to dress the way they dress, talk the way they talk and sell the policies of government and get their buy-in to be able to support President Bola Amit. That is the reason. All the ministries are quite critical. Are you satisfied with Waleidu being the minister of finance, coordinating? I think Waleidu is okay because he is an economist. We have known him even before now. He has been very, very deep and strategic in his thinking about the economy. I think he knows what is going on there. So his training and the cognitive experience, both educational qualification and what he has been doing in the last one decade showed that he should be able to coordinate that sector well. I also think that Professor Pate is a good one. Professor Pate is an expert in public health and he has been a global icon in that area. So bringing him to coordinate the health sector is quite good. He is a proper deployment. Another one is the minister of petroleum. We are not yet sure what is going on with that. The president wants to retain the office of the minister of petroleum. Yes, it is an anomaly. It was started by a person job appointed for no reason. The Buhari repeated the same thing and he was in the same process. Otherwise, what stops him from announcing the minister of petroleum? He didn't do that. So for now, we have to believe that he is holding that portfolio. Somebody like Wike brought to FCT as minister. Wike is a project person. And FCT needs a rugged hand. FCT, I live here, FCT is a shadow of itself. The place has been under managed. There is what you call a Buhari master image. It has been lost to the kind of administration that the territory has been exposed to. In the last time, perhaps one or two decades, I think that Wike should be able to make a difference. However, if I had my way, I would have the same time Wike to work or power and bring Umahi here because we have an emergency situation in the power sector. And the person that is in power doesn't know his background. I don't know. Maybe he is an expert there. I was trying to research around. We haven't quite found anything to show that he will be able to handle the power sector. I really don't know. What do you want to take on the aviation sector? Aviation sector is... Well, you have Festus Keamo there. A legal luminary, a lawyer. Festus Keamo is a lawyer. That's his life. That's what he has been all his life. Festus Keamo knows no jack about aviation and they will not take space engineering. Nothing. So he's a mismatch, obviously. He will struggle to perform there. And that's the fact. You see, when you bring fish out of water, it will struggle to survive outside water. Even Festus Keamo was retained as a substantive minister of labor because he was there for seven years with him again. He knows where he stopped and should know where to continue as the substantive minister of labor. I believe he would have been a better deployment. For me, I may be wrong in that presumption. But taking him to aviation and aviation and aeronautical space ministry is something... Don't forget, it's almost a new ministry because when you bring in the aeronautical space, it's a modification of aviation ministry. That means you have things even new to bring in there. You need somebody who is really knowledgeable in that area. He's a lawyer. Yes, he's a lawyer and lawyers, arguably, they call themselves learned people. The rest of us are not learned. We agree with them. What they mean by that is that they take time to study almost everything. So they have a perspective to everything in order to defend their clients who could be anybody. Yes, I understand that. He means that his background as a lawyer will give him that capacity to research in the area. But it will never be the same as bringing in an expert who has been in that field in the last one or two decades. The person would have over time studied the area, understand what the problems are, and knows precisely the policy operations that are needed, and hit the ground running from day one. But this guy hasn't been involved in that area at all. So he lacks the training in that area. He lacks a cognitive experience in that area. And we'll have to really learn on the job. Learning from the job there means that he has to, in his time, he has to struggle for some time. Also, let me also say, yes, the overall argument is that you say the minister is the head of administration and order. I don't think so. The minister is not the head of administration in the ministry. The head of administration in the ministry is the permanent secretary. The minister is the chief policy driver. He's the one that is driving the policy of the president. He has to download the policy of the president of the party in the sector to an implementation level. That is the job of the minister, not administration. So those who say, well, he's administrative, it is not right to just, that is a secondary concern. The reason you have the permanent secretary in the ministry is the actual administration. That's the truth. Policy, policy making, policy implementation, policy direction. That is the foundational responsibility of the minister. And that is why I said that this mismatch of deployments will cause a problem. Because you need to... Why do you think that President Tanubu is making these same decisions? I don't want to call them mistakes, but these same decisions. Because in the last administration, we had some of the ministers who, towards the end of their tenure, revealed that they knew nothing about the sectors the ministries they were sent to and talk about education, talk about Areba Sholan, they knew nothing about where they were sent to. And so that probably... So why are we seeing a repeat of such? Politics. This is like I told you, this is a compensation list. It does settle in the people that have helped him win an election. Otherwise, the 10, 9 to 10 governors in Brooklyn have nothing new to offer Nigerians, as far as I am concerned. Because the motivation is not there. One is that they have been chief executives of the states for eight years. Some of them have even been ministers before. Someone like Wike was minister of the state for education. And later, he became the acting sub-tantive minister when Professor Rukia to Rufai left. We became coordinated the entire education. So Wike was a minister 10 years ago, 20 years ago, and he's back now. He's back as a minister again after serving as a governor of river state for eight years in between. So you wonder where it comes to motivation, what such persons will be bringing to the table. In organizational psychology, there's what we call burnout. You do something for too long. You begin to lose interest. You need fresh talent. You understand that? That is why I said, well, because FCT is like a state. He's coming here. We see it as a kind of continuation of governorship. That's it. Because, you know, ordinarily, the president is the governor of FCT. But because he wouldn't have the time, he has to appoint somebody. But he doesn't go by the designation of governor. He goes by the designation minister. But actually, the job of the minister of FCT is the job of the governor of a state. Everything you have in the state is what you have here. So when you talk about the one-day secretary, these are commissioners. When you hear secretary of education in FCT, that is commissioner of education in FCT. In states, you call them commissioners in FCT. They are called secretaries. So we came, we'll be fine, because he will continue the job. It's only scenario that has changed for him. But like I said, I would have preferred that we came because of his energy, because of his greed. I would have preferred him in a place like power. Because we need to really resolve the problem of power. If it's something we get to defense, would that be better? I'm very serious. You need to, these are sectors that must be got to right. And that is one of the reasons I... Yeah, we should have gone to defense. He has this military thing about him. He has the background of dealing with the militancy and all those things. And someone like Festus Kiamo, I believe he's a brilliant man. I think Festus Kiamo is an intelligent man. But I'm not sure if putting him in aviation would give him the platform to shine. I think... It don't. It don't. He will not shine in aviation. You understand that? Festus will not shine in aviation. I know that Festus, given the chance, will give even his right arm to go to the office of the attorney general, even as minister of, even as minister of state. You understand that? He wouldn't want to be in aviation or things like that. You know, just like they posted the Allake, it's only been a that. Allake is an ex-journalist. Yeah. You know, one of the best who have produced. Yeah, he is a solid journalist. Let me quickly mention the Latif, right? Latif, me, Sam, deployed to the office of attorney general as a substantive minister of justice. He's a very brilliant lawyer, very experienced. He is not overly given to politics. So he will focus on the integrity of the job and lead the politics to politicians. The women are few on this list. I think... What's your take? There are really few. And even in Australia, the lady coming from the exit bank, you know, was sort of dropped or yet to be cleared. So he leaves the list and the rest of them are actually deployed as a minister of state. Only Uchu Kennedy Oranege is deployed as a substantive minister of the women affairs. The rest are deployed as minister of state. That means they have to act and work on that on that coordinating ministers or substantive ministers. You know, for me, it's not really good. We need to give our women a better latitude to really show what they can do. And also beyond the minister of women affairs. That was what I was saying that why didn't the president consider sending somebody like Honorable Oranege Orta to use the ministry. She is neutral. She is not yet 50. So a woman and somebody who is fairly neutral and fairly exposed should be able to bring some change, some kind of it. There is something about optics. When you deploy people properly, when you deploy people properly, there is that public perception that this person can perform. But when you don't deploy them properly and the optics is pointing to a rampage in a square hole, you really have a problem of public support from day one because people have the impression that this person is not likely to succeed. So a person we really have to work extra hard to be able to convince the people that he or she can perform. And it does appear that... I don't think the women have the Okay. And it does appear that the Niger Delta Ministry may have been scrapped. It has been scrapped and I don't think it is right. It's a legal issue. It's a creation of the law and scrapping it all together. I really don't know why you scrapped that and created new ministries. I will now say that the problem of the Niger Delta does not require ministerial intervention because it means that all we have now is the NGDC. There was a reason Jonathan created the ministry of... I think it was Yara Dwar that created that in 2008. Yes, as part of the deal when he was trying to bring peace to that area. Even if the ministry has not performed, it may not be because of the mandate of the ministry being irrelevant or unnecessary. It may be because of the kind of people that have manned the place, including the incumbent president. It was one time the minister of Niger Delta and at the point he said, don't judge me by my performance when I was minister of Niger Delta. So by self-admittance, he was telling Nigerians that he didn't do well as a minister. So why don't you look for who can? Do you understand that? Yes. So somebody like Wike would have done externally well in Niger Delta because that's his terrain. You seem to have a lot of confidence in Wike, Nissan Wike. I'm not Wike's fan, but Wike, you must give it to him. He has a lot of energy, a lot of vision, a lot of ideas. For me, he's very rugged. That is why I am not happy that Air Rufine dropped off. I am not a fan of Air Rufine, but Air Rufine and Wike share a lot of things. They come up and they have that grit. They have that determination. Once they set their mind to get anything done, they do it and do it well. If you remove security from Air Rufine's record as minister of diversity and the governor of Kaduna, he performed brilliantly well in Kaduna. He brought in a lot of innovations. Though he clearly failed in the area of security, but here we're not talking about security. If he has the opportunity to really run power, he can do well in power. He can even return as minister of diversity and restore order and the master image of diversity. He actually succeeded in doing it when he was minister here. Air Rufine restored Abudian's master image. He did when he was minister here. Overall, what's your score of this whole portfolio assignment? Well, let me be generous and patriotic. Let me give you 50 percent. It can be more than that. All right. Well, thank you so much for your time, Dr. Law. It's been very, very exciting listening to you analyze. The pleasure is mine. Thank you for hosting me. I'll be blessed in Nigerians. You too. Well, that was Law Me, for Dr. Law Me who joined us to take a look at President Nubu's list of ministerial nominees and the portfolios that have been assigned to them. We'll be going to break now to come back with a second hot topic. Do stay with us. We want to discuss Niger and the crisis there. Stay with us.