by Mark Amaza

It is common knowledge that the Nigerian government is a very large one, with 28 ministries and parastatals, agencies and commissions that altogether total about 500. There has been a lot of talk about reducing the size and cost of government, with President Goodluck Jonathan constituting a committee headed by former Head of the Federal Civil Service, Stephen Oronsanye, to look into ways that the size of government can be reduced. In the end, the committee recommended the scrapping of 1-02 statutory agencies from the current 263, abolition of 38 agencies, merger of 52 and reversion of 14 to departments within ministries. So far, no ministry has been penciled down for either scrapping or merger.

But how did the ministries fared this outgoing year of 2013? Let us look at them in alphabetical order:

• Agriculture: Building up on the momentum from last year, highly-rated Minister of Agriculture, Akinwunmi Adesina continued with his vision of improving Nigerian agriculture, through his Growth Enhancement Scheme by launching a scheme to help farmers directly access market information and fertilizer subsidies by procuring 10 million phones at the cost of N60billion. However, the scheme came under heavy criticism by many who saw it as a white elephant project, but the minister stood his ground and the project has paid and it has helped to eliminate four decades of corruption in the fertilizer sector. Additionally, his efforts to reduce importation of rice has paid off as importation of rice through the ports has reduced by 95%, although a lot of smuggling still takes place through the borders. However, his efforts to boost local production of wheat, Nigeria’s second most imported food product has suffered with the Boko Haram insurgency in Borno State, where wheat is mostly locally grown. Adesina crowned his 2013 by winning the Forbes Africa Man of the Year Award.

• Aviation: Just as 2012 was a controversial year for her after the Dana Air Crash, Princess Stella Oduah has had a very turbulent 2013. Despite continuing with her Transformation Agenda of the aviation sector through the renovations of airport terminals across the country, she was bogged down by first the Associated Airlines crash in October carrying the body of late Ondo State governor, Olusegun Mimiko, and then by the N255m bulletproof-car scandal, which has threatened to cost her seat. Her achievement of making the Akanu Ibiam Airport, Enugu an international airport was canceled out by the controversy of whether she rejected applications for landing slots for some foreign airlines at the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport, Kano. 2014 and a better year cannot come soon enough for Princess Oduah.

• Communications Technology: This ministry, which is Nigeria’s newest ministry which is headed by Mrs. Omobola Johnson, former Accenture Country Manager has been working largely to reduce the cost of internet access in Nigeria and increase local IT content. One of her biggest achievements this year was getting the Lagos State Government to slash its Right of Way (RoW), the single largest impediment cost to providing broadband access by 85%, provided the operators comply with the state government’s directives. Following the National Broadband Policy which the ministry rolled out this year too, plans are in the works to set up six regional infrastructure companies to make it easier to provide broadband access. Hopefully, all these policies and plans will start to yield results in 2014.

• Defense: Nigeria’s defence sector continued to be in the news, although its share of the budget dropped from a trillion naira in 2012 to N348billion, the continuing Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East and oil theft in the South-South of the country made sure that the nation’s armed forces were fully engaged, not to mention international peace-keeping operations in Northern Mali and Darfur region of Sudan. The declaration of a state of emergency in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States by President Goodluck Jonathan in May saw large deployment of soldiers to these states. Although the military has succeeded in pushing the insurgents in most parts of Yobe and Adamawa States and Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, they remain a destructive force in other parts of Borno State, especially the roads leading to and fro Maiduguri, where they have waylaid and killed many travelers. The ministry is still without a substantive minister since Alhaji Bello Haliru Mohammed was relieved of the post in June 2012; Information Minister Labaran Maku superintends over the ministry.

• Education: This was another of the most troubled ministries this year, with strikes from the start of the year to the very end. First, it was the strike by the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) from April to August. They handed the baton of striking to the usual suspects, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) which striked from July till December, during which its former president, Festus Iyayi died in an accident while being involved in the negotiations to end the strike. While the ASUU strike was ongoing, ASUP resumed its strike in October and it is still on-going. The Minister of Education, Ruqayyatu Rufa’i also lost her job, although that could be more connected with the intrigues within the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), as her state governor, Sule Lamido of Jigawa was one of the principal actors. The Minister of State, Nyesom Wike has been acting as full minister. Apparently, receiving the highest budgetary allocation of N468bn in 2013 was not enough to keep this very important sector stable.

• Environment: Compared to being in the news squarely last year following the national flood epidemic, the Environment Ministry has been very quiet this year. Illegal mining has continued unabated in many parts of the country with the likely effect of environmental disasters, the desert has continued its encroachment and climate change remains unchecked. The biggest news from this ministry was the inclusion of its minister, Hadiza Mailafiya among the nine ministers sacked by President Jonathan in September.

• Finance: Following the heavy hitting she took for her role in the partial removal of fuel subsidies last year and losing her bid for the World Bank Presidency, Finance Minister and Co-ordinating Minister of the Economy, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala continued with her efforts to reduce government’s recurrent expenditure while battling dwindling earnings from oil due to oil theft and falling global prices of oil. However, her efforts have met a brick-wall with regards to the budget, following the delay in having the budget passed by the National Assembly, which also increased the budget after a lengthy spat over what should be the benchmark crude oil price. She continues to be one of the most criticized ministers in President Jonathan’s administration – a fall-out of the subsidy drama of last year.

• Foreign Affairs: Nigeria continued to play a prominent role on the African continent with events in Northern Mali taking centrestage in 2013. Together with France, Nigeria sent peacekeeping troops to push out the rebels in the former French colony, where the Ansar-al-Dine, the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA) and the Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM) had formed an unholy trio and offering support to our own Boko Haram. Although Nigeria was once again not among the countries visited by US President Barack Obama during his African tour in June, Nigeria shrugged it off by strengthening its relationship with China, signing loan agreements to boost its power and aviation infrastructure to the tune of $3.2billion in the whole year. However, all these were not enough to keep the minister, Olugbenga Ashiru from losing his job in September, with the minister of state, Prof. Viola Owuliri taking charge of the ministry.

• Health: The health ministry took a hit in July when its highly-rated Minister of State, Muhammaed Ali Pate resigned to join the Duke University’s Global Health Institute in the USA. Also, the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) went on two strikes, in October and December, and are threatening to go on a third one in January 2014. The National Health Bill is still languishing at the National Assembly. What a tough year.

• Justice: While Mohammed Adoke Bello, the Justice Minister was in the news for all the wrong news last year especially following his cancellation of the concessioning contract awarded Manitoba Power Systems of Canada to run Nigeria’s national power transmission grid, the stench that had started emanating from the Malabu Oil scam in which he is alleged to have been involved did not clear this year. Sadly, a conclusion to the case is yet to be arrived at.

• Labour: Emeka Wogu, the Labour Minister had his hands full this year as he had to play the role of a peacemaker between the government and aggrieved workers’ unions, and there were many of such aggrieved unions. To his credit, he was able to help sort out the severance benefits of 45, 000 workers of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) which had threatened to scuttle the privatization of the inefficient power behemoth. He also played crucial roles in ending the strikes by the ASUU, ASUP, NARD and the other alphabet soups of trade unions. However, it does seem that his 2014 might not be different from 2013, as there are other strikes in the offing, such as those by the NARD and Nigerian Medical Association (NMA).

• Lands and Urban Development: If you forget that such a ministry exists, it is not your fault. There is hardly any news of happenings here at the ministry. Infact, many have pointed out that the existence of this ministry is an aberration, considering the fact that the Federal Government does not own any lands. Nigeria has a deficit of 17 million homes, with the biggest obstacles to meeting this demand being a lack of access to mortgage finance and the Land Use Act which makes it difficult to acquire and transfer land. Despite all this, the biggest news coming from the ministry was the sacking of its minister, Ama Pepple in September as one of the nine ministers fired en masse.

 

– We shall continue with the concluding part of this review.