Bayo Onanuga: Tinubu Dismissed Ministers Based On Nigerians’ Perceptions, Not A Whimsical Action

The Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, has said that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu dismissed five ministers from his cabinet on Wednesday based on Nigerian citizens’ perception of them and empirical facts.

Onanuga said this in an interview with ARISE NEWS on Wednesday, where he also defended Tinubu’s decision to appoint seven new ministers to his cabinet, saying that the Nigerian government needs a lot of hands to tackle the problem that the country is facing.

This came after the President let go of Barr. Uju-Ken Ohanenye, who served as the Minister of Women Affairs, Lola Ade-John, the former Minister of Tourism, Prof. Tahir Mamman SAN OON, who held the role of Minister of Education, Abdullahi Muhammad Gwarzo, who was the Minister of State, Housing and Urban Development, and Dr. Jamila Bio Ibrahim, previously the Minister of Youth Development.

He stated, “When the ministers were sworn in, the President actually told them that as the president, he has the power to hire and fire, and that he will not hesitate to remove ministers who could not perform. There was a retreat in October last year where he also repeated the same warning about his plan to always try to rejig his cabinet in case some are not performing well.”

Discussing the process in which the decision to remove these ministers was made, Onanuga said, “It was not just something that was done whimsically, I think the President- Hadiza [Bala Usman- Special Adviser to the President on Policy and Coordination] in fact brought technology into it, asking Nigerians to score the ministers. So, the reason it was done, whoever was removed out of the ministers, it was based on some empirical facts, the public perception of these ministers, they were the people who actually did the score card, and the President acted on the results.”

He then said that the dismissals didn’t necessarily mean that the ministers were not meeting Tinubu’s expectations as he explained, “Not just the President’s expectations, it’s the expectation of the public. Some weeks ago at the cabinet meeting, the President actually told the ministers to go out there, tell Nigerians what you have been doing for the past one year or so, because according to the president, he the perception outside there by the people is that the people feel that the government is not performing, and the government believes that the government is performing, but the ministers are not going out to really project government the appropriate way.”

The Presidential Adviser then noted that despite the appointment of seven new ministers, the government is still actively working on ways to significantly lower the cost of governance. He then revealed, “By tomorrow, the President will actually be announcing some cutting down in government expenses, starting from the ministers. Tomorrow, I don’t want to pre-empt it, we have a statement ready, I don’t want to pre-empt it, but it will be drastic to show the government is really serious about reducing the cost of governance.”

“The government knows what it’s doing, that look, to really tackle the big issues in our country, you need many hands, many competent hands to really help to drive the agenda of government. It’s not the largeness, but government is going to do a lot of things, like I said, from tomorrow, you will hear some announcements about what government is trying to do to make sure that we reduce the cost of running the government.”

Regarding the appointment of Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Onanuga defended the decision, as he said, “Some people will say Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu is widow of Ojukwu and so on, but Bianca has some diplomatic experience. She’s been an ambassador in Spain, and so, asking her to be Minister of State for Foreign Affairs shows you the President’s intention. Even if some people may say it’s political, you can see that the lady has some experience. So, she will add some value in that Ministry of foreign Affairs”

Onanuga also discussed the rationale behind retaining the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, saying, “By the vision of the President, he’s even trying to expand the scope of that ministry… We live in a country where most of our people are poor, and government feels the need to make sure that at least it tries to offer them some palliatives to support them.”

“What we’re doing, yes, corruption has affected that ministry in the past, even under the former President and so on. The government is now trying to put some technology to use, by making sure that people that they send money to, they have NIN, this National ID Number, so that they can really track those who are receiving money,” he added.