 This is the breakfast in Plosivia, Africa. President Mohammed Buhari has forwarded the names of seven ministerial nominees to the Nigerian Senate for screening and confirmation. In a letter read on the floor of the Senate by its president, Ahmed Lawan, the start-up plenary, the nominees include Henry Ike Chuku, Abia State, Omanaw Mana of Aqaibam State, Yakouma Joseph, Eboni State, and Umar Yakou, Kanu among others. The nominees are to replace ministers in President Buhari's cabinet who had resigned to contest for the presidential primaries of the all-progressive Congress as well as other offices. We take a track down when we return would have Nika Gule who joins us, the public affairs analyst to share his thoughts on this issue. Stay with us. I have the honor to forward the underlisted ministerial nominees for confirmation by the Senate. One, Henry Ike Chuku, Eko, Abia State. Two, Omanaw Ocon, Omanaw Aqaibam State. Three, Ekouman Kama Joseph, Omanaw Eboni State. Four, Goodluck Nana Opiea, Emo State. Five, Umar Ibrahim Eliakoub, Kanu State. Six, Ade Mola Ade Wole Ade Goree, Ondo State. And seven, Odum Udi River State. Copies of the curriculum we take are attached herewith. It is my hope that this exercise will receive the usual expeditious consideration of the distinguished members of the Senate of the federal public of Nigeria. I have the honor to forward it. No, you had it from Aqbaat Lawan, the Senate President. Nika Gule joins the conversation this morning, a public affairs analyst. Nika Gule, thank you so much for being part of the breakfast. Thank you very much, Masi. I'm happy to be here. That's all right. Let's share your thoughts. Generally, what do you make of this scenario? You have members of the President's cabinet and we understand that he took the President almost six months to come up with his ministers because he needed to be sure that he had to get the right peasants. And then you also have these Ministers who also will be nothing and an ambition of becoming the President. They have to become a flag bearer of the party. Now, it is what it is, as it should be stated. But what do you make of the entire scenario? These peasants have actually resigned. And now you have new peasants or, I mean, proposed peasants who've been hoping that the Senate would actually give a nod to them and then they become Ministers. Yes. So the President, in nominating these Ministers and forwarding their names to the Senate for confirmation, is exercising his constitutional responsibility of ensuring that the business of government in Nigeria is running. But you did make mention of the fact that it takes President Buhari an unusually long time to come up with ministerial lists. If we go back to 2015, when the President was newly elected as Nigeria's President, I mean, you expect that when someone is seeking office, President Buhari sought office in 2003, 2007, 2011, and finally made it in 2015. When you seek office for so long a time, one will expect that you already have your agenda in your head. You already have an idea of those who can help you prosecute that agenda. And then the President was elected, I think, was he not in February of 2015 or March of 2015, and I think he was elected in March of 2015, was actually elected on my birthday, the 28th of March. From March to April to May when he took office, you expect that, okay, if Nigerians are giving me a job in March and I'm going to resume on the 29th of May, I have to use that March, I have to use that April and that May to get my team together so that on the day I will take my auto office on the 29th of May, I would already have known those who are going to help me in this governance process. And I will make known their names to the National Assembly so that they can begin the process of vetting and clearing them. But the two President Buhari, six good months, like you have said, from May 29th, before he was able to nominate ministers in November of that 2015. So how is that possible for someone who is ready to take office? You know, it shows clearly, for me, these were the 30 signs right at the beginning of Buhari's first term that Buhari may not be ready to lead us. Because at the end of the day, when we waited for those six months, we were actually expecting that the President is actually going all over the world, scouting and evaluating Nigerians from all walks of life and experiences so that he will give us a cabinet that is actually nowhere that is different from what we have always been seeing. And President Buhari took these six months from May 29th to announce a cabinet in November of people that we already know. They're in Giges, they are Maches, the usual politicians that were already on the scene that we know them. So when we have taken him so long to give us these same actors that we are already aware of, you know, so this for me was a very bad start for President Buhari. And in fact, it was when I started to think that President Buhari may not be ready to lead Nigeria, he may not be ready. And then what happened the year after is that President Buhari is the only president in Nigeria that does not do cabinet reshuffle. He doesn't do cabinet reshuffle, he doesn't sack ministers. You can do whatever you want to do. So long as he has given you office, you can be assured that you can do your work till the end of the tenure. President Buhari is not going to torture you. Look at all the issues that we have had in Nigeria. And President Buhari hasn't called any minister, reprimanded any minister. The only ministers that lead President Buhari's cabinet are those who live on their own volition. Maybe like Amina Muhammad, who went to the UN to take a job, you know, the former minister of finance, who just resigned, you know, to maintain her own name, what's her name now, forgotten her name, you know, that left because of the NYAC scandal and all of that. And then the ones that just left recently to go and pursue their political ambitions. These are the only type of people that lead President Buhari's office. He never reshuffles cabinet, never sacks anybody. So for me, President Buhari has been doing a very bad job of managing the team that will help him to deliver good governance. And no wonder we cannot say that our lives are better today than they were seven years ago when Buhari became a president. All right. Let's also stay with the fact that we're talking about continuity. We're taught in elementary government that one of the characteristics of government is continuity. And so you have less than one year to go. It's not up to what happens when you have some ministers. For instance, a lot of persons have projected the likes of Rotimi Amici as a minister of transport and that he's been able to achieve in that, you know, time frame that he has. I mean, we're just looking at the time frame now. What happens with continuity with the replacement of these ministers? Yes. So there should be no gap, you know, because last, as he said, nature abhors a vacuum. And for continuity of governance, when these ministers left office to pursue their political ambitions, the apartment secretary started to act as ministers. And now the president has nominated substantive ministers to replace them. So that continuity is there. But the issue we're always been talking about is the quickness with which the president is acting in terms of nominating these ministers. And then you talk about specifically someone like Rotimi Amici, and you talk about the fact that he's noted to have delivered good governance. People are Rotimi Amici. I will give him like 20% performance. I mean, what has he delivered? When you talk about the Abuja Kano rail line, you talk about the Ibadon Lagos rail line, is that the only thing that someone will use seven years to deliver? I mean, Nigeria by now, we should have, in Abuja way, I'm speaking to you now from. I should be able to, from this Abuja, take a train and travel to any of the 36 capitals of Nigeria. And if Rotimi Amici, within seven years, was able to deliver me traveling to at least four, five state capitals, six, preferably 10, I can be saying seven years is not a small, it's not a small time. A man who is 70 years old, seven years is 10% of his entire lifespan. And you waste it, and we're talking about Abuja Kaduna Lagos Ibadon, which are rail projects that were already there. They were already in progress when he took office as minister. And the reason why Rotimi Amici failed in his office as minister of transportation is that it is this holding onto everything like a baby by government. We are now living in the 21st century where economies are no longer run by government business. Economies are run by the private sector. There are individuals, the Jeff Bezos, the big gates, you know, of this world, what's this man's name in Twitter, Tesla man, you know, these people have more money than the federal government of Nigeria. The federal government of Nigeria's annual budget is $30 billion. And Microsoft is a company that is delivering $300 billion of revenue every year, 10% more than what Nigeria is doing. So at the end of the day, people that are Rotimi Amici should have gone beyond the usual government quoting, holding onto this thing and release the race sector now into the private sector. Imagine if you release the race sector into the private sector in a very transparent and honest process. We would have got enough capital because people's capital is floating around the world. And you would have made a landfall in Nigeria. And today we'll be talking about you can travel from Calabar to Medugri, from Lagos to Sokoto, from Enugu to Kano to Medugri on trains. And that could have been possible to happen in seven years. So this guy just come, they deliver mediocre performance, and then they will be punching their chest and saying, I have delivered this and that. You use seven years to do nothing, as far as I'm concerned, if we specifically talk about Rotimi Amici. And that has been the case with the other ministers as well. Imagine the President Buhari took office in 2019, and electricity was at 3 gigawatts. 3 gigawatts, that is 3000 megawatts in 2015. In 2022, seven years later, Nigeria's electricity still remains 3000 megawatts, with more frequent collapse of the national grid. And so somebody tells me that the Minister of Power and the President, who is his boss, are performing. How can they be performing when we can use that seven years and shut down the gas that we're flaring and channel that gas into turbines. And Nigeria would have increased power output now from that 3000 to perhaps 10, 15, 20,000 megawatts. It's doable. Turbines are there of the shape for you to buy them. So this is the problem. And people don't realize that this economy will never do well if you don't give it blood. And the blood of every economy is electricity. So my rating of the ministers and their boss, the President, is no more than 20 percent, I say, unfortunately. So let's also, I mean, take a look at the candidates that's been nominated for screening and looking at their portfolio and their capacity to perform. I mean, do you see them, any of them? Do you think that they have what it takes to lead Nigeria or shift us a bit? We don't have so much time. But do you see them with that capacity, you know, to move the country to another level, maybe for a second? Yes. Yes, they have the capacity. I've taken a look at all seven candidates. They have either had positions of commissioners or they have been at the National Assembly or they have been appointed to one board or the other. So in terms of administrative capacity, that should give them the experience that they need. But the point is that capacity aside, their own boss, the President, needs to give them the correct leadership that will enable them to deliver. I mean, if you look at the Minister of State for Petroleum, in 2015, they took office with four refineries dead. In 2022, seven years later, four refineries died. And Nigeria continued to suffer from scarcity, sleeping on the queue, looking for petrol, something that we are one of the world's largest producers. This is very shameful. So the President needed to call the Minister of State for Petroleum and say, my friend, within one year, I don't want to hear fuel importation in Nigeria again. And if he doesn't deliver it in that one year, you suck him. That is what leadership is about. And President Buwari is not providing leadership to his Ministers. Nika Gule, I mean, when you say that, the President should say to his Minister, we don't want to hear about fuel importation. You know, we have refineries that are not functional. I mean, do you think that the Minister can actually act independent of the President in that capacity, in that regard? We're talking about the refineries now. Because majorly, with all of the back and forth that we're faced with, fuel scarcity, price hike, what have you subsidy or no subsidy, it's hinge on the fact that we don't have the capacity to refine products. We have the capacity to refine our products. So if you have the capacity to refine, why are you not refining? Do you call that capacity? Exactly. So your question is apt. Why are we not refining? Just by the fact that we have four refineries that can refine 400,000 barrels per day. The answer is leadership. If the President on assuming office told the Minister of State for Petroleum that within one year, I want all our refineries to work and give support to that Minister by approving his budget, approving all his proposals, and getting the right people to come and repair these refineries, or better still, selling off these refineries or leasing them out to global operators who have brought in their money, their expertise and their technology and sorted these refineries, Nigerians will not be slipping on the queue today. So Petro is very shameful that a country that is one of the world's largest producers of crude oil, the citizens cannot even see Petro. The citizens are buying diesel at 850 Naira. When Puhari took off his diesel was 200 Naira a litre. Now it's 850. And this thing continues and the President is sitting there looking as if nothing is happening wrong in this economy. And that is why I put it back on his table. If you don't just tell the Ministers, you should give them the support to do it. And if they are not doing it, just back all the support, you should sack them. We should learn to wake up in the morning and say the President has sacked a Minister because he has failed to perform. There are other Ministers who sit up. But the President who is acting as if he is absent, he doesn't even know in the nation. Nigerians are suffering insecurity, Nigerians are suffering electricity, suffering Petro, suffering price increases, suffering healthcare, education students at home, and the President doesn't just seem to respond to these issues. So with that leadership, how can the Ministers do it? But I understand where you're coming from. But the question is, will the Ministers provide the leadership? Or is the President that would provide the leadership? Because, I mean, you're talking about the President here, right? And he has Ministers. What can these Ministers really do? We understand that they have duty to perform. But if you have the President who is the President, who doesn't really align with the thoughts of these Ministers, what then can become a thing? Can these Ministers act independent of the President and provide leadership that we desire? So the country that we have now, we have a country, 36 states, including the FCT 37, and we have different ministries. Are you saying that these Ministers are responsible for where these different sectors are? Or is it a function of the head? The Ministers were not elected by Nigerians. It is the President who was given the mandate to lead us. The President brings in the Ministers to help him perform his duty as the President of Nigeria. And so whatever the Ministers are doing, they are doing it in the name of the President. And if the President does not like what the Ministers are doing, it becomes on the President to take action against the Ministers. So if Nigeria is not working well, we cannot place the burden on the two steps of the Ministers. We have to place the burden on the table of the President because that's where the book stops. A President that is open alive to his responsibilities to see the problems in the country. He has to be aware that students, university students are at home. Unless he occupies his day, he should begin his day by inviting the Minister of Education and saying, why are students here at home? I want students to go back. Tell me what it requires to send students back home. And the Minister will simply tell him that ASU is looking for 200 billion Naira to go back to the classroom. And the President should look for the money and give to the Ministers to give to ASU because this is the same President who is approving 4 trillion Naira, 4 trillion. Look, there are 200 billion. There are five of them in a trillion. And this President has approved 4 trillion. Now they are talking about 6 trillion to go and pay petrol subsidies. Something he should have solved if he got the four refineries working. If he got the four refineries working, the 4 trillion that he's now wasting on petrol subsidies would not be used to give ASU money, healthcare money, rose money, you know, education, all sorts of things the President could have done. So you can see we have a President who doesn't even know what the problems are and how he can go about solving them. Because if he solved the refinery issue, he would have automatically solved the petrol subsidy issue that is now chopping 4 trillion of money when ASU are on strike for only 200 billion. So the bookstops are the President's table. That's simple. Well, quickly as we call sit down now, do you see the Senate actually giving a nod screening in terms of screening now because they have to go through that process? And you also need to look at the time because there's an office that's vacant and it needs to be occupied and the, you know, politics and governance need to continue. So do you see the Senate giving a nod to this persons who've been nominated? I don't see the reason why the Senate will not give the nod. Because first and foremost, this Senate has never said no to President Buwari. And we know because the two leaders of the National, the two chambers of the National Assembly, the President wanted to install them in 2015. Before the PDP did a pilot school and you solved them. So in 2019, they succeeded in putting these same two people as leaders of the National Assembly. These people have acted in the last three years since they took office as senior special assistants to the President. You know, the President has carried out impeachable offenses. The President has ignored them. The President has done anything he wanted to do. And these two people have not got the National Assembly to bite, to carry out his constitutional office of checkmating the executive arm of government. So I see no risk at all of they not approving these people, except probably it touches on their own personal thing. If it touches on them personally, like we saw in the Electoral Bill, which they passed and discovered later to their charge during that, they removed themselves and started three delegates out of the Electoral Bill. This same National Assembly went back to the chamber within one day, one day. They passed the amended Electoral Law, I mean Bill, and sent it to the President. And the President just ignored them. He routinely just ignored them. That is how they were not part of the delegates that were voting. So when it touches on them personally, they do it quickly. But if it doesn't touch on them, you know, they are not bothered. They are not bothered. Nigerians are in forest. As we speak, messy, as we speak now, you were talking about the rains before we started the program. Those rains are falling on Nigeria, who are in forest in the territory of Nigeria. And nobody is going for them. And we have a National Assembly that cannot ask the President, why are you commanding in chief? And Nigerians are in forest under the rainfall in their own country. And nobody is going for them. Then what are you commanding for? Are you commanding for what? Are you commanding for cockroaches or what? If you are commanding for Nigerians, you should go to the aid of those Nigerians. We have the lives of Israel. They kidnapped Israelis and took them to Uganda in September. Israel left Tel Aviv thousands of miles and went to September and went and released their citizens. We have Nigerian citizens in forest. Here in Kaduna, everywhere, Zamfara. And we have a chief of defense staff. As we speak, that chief of defense staff is sitting in his office with ranks on his shoulders. And Nigerians are in the rain, in this forest, pregnant women, deliver the new baby in that forest. He's still there. But I know we are digressing a bit. The President has given an order. He's very, very clear with that directive that he's given. And his other dispassants go ahead and ensure that those who have been kidnapped, rescued, brought home alive, you know, save and alive. That's the instruction from the President. So I don't know any reason why these dispassants have no reason. We're talking about this security personnel not having any reason to act swiftly and ensure that the order of the President is respected. Apparently, waiting for the President to give that order an instruction. Yeah, but let's see. We are still speaking about the same thing because Nigeria has a ministeral defense. So if we're talking about ministers, we are not speaking specifically about the Ministry of Defense or who just a minister, just a minister of state. We're also talking about the service chiefs. We have a chief of defense staff and four service chiefs. We have an inspector general police. We have digital DSS. We have all the security across and Nigerians are in the forest. Why is that the case? If the President has given an order, then the President as a former general knows that if you give an order, if a lieutenant, a lieutenant in the Army, that is the one with two stars on his shoulder, gives an order to a second lieutenant, the one with one star on his shoulder, and that second lieutenant does not carry that order, that lieutenant will punish that second lieutenant. It is the military. So how can you be commander-in-chief and you summon your service chiefs and give them order? And they routinely, routinely ignore you and you are doing nothing about it as a former general. How is that possible? Well, Nika Gule, we need to take a break right now. When we return, we'll continue with the conversation, but on a different, you know, subject entirely. Thank you so much for being part of the show this morning.