Why Buhari is wrong on government, ministers and civil servants

President Muhammadu Buhari is a politician of implacable authenticity and pure principle. He is, indeed, a “non-politician politician”, however oxymoronic that may sound. A clear manifestation of this characteristic is the president’s penchant for speaking his mind without presentational considerations. So, for example, he said at a public meeting during his visit to the US in July that “constituencies that gave me 97 percent cannot in all honesty be treated equally, on some issues, with constituencies that gave me 5 percent”. True to his nature to shoot from the hip, the president also told a journalist during his recent visit to France that ministers are “noisemakers”, and added that those pressuring him to appoint ministers simply “want to see their people directly in government and see what they can get out of it”! So, there you go, Buhari doesn’t prevaricate. He is a principled, say-it-as-it-is, person!
Of course, most of us like politicians who speak directly and frankly. But straight-talking is a double-edged sword. In democratic politics, authenticity comes at a price. For instance, your authenticity and granite integrity might land you in trouble with a lot of people, as Buhari found with his “97/5 percent” comment, which some Nigerians have latched onto and refused to let go! But this should not stop the president from having the courage of his convictions. He should speak his mind, but must be willing to welcome opposing views.
It is in that context that I want to discuss the president’s recent interview with Francois Picard of the French TV France 24. I believe that much of his comments in that interview about the definition of government and the roles of ministers and civil servants tell us a lot about how he might direct the affairs of this country. Since I have a different perspective, I would like to put it across. Let me start with how the president defines government.

In the interview, President Buhari was asked: “You don’t have a government yet. When are we going to have the naming of the cabinet?” The president replied, rather bemusedly: “We have a government but we don’t have a cabinet”, adding, “I don’t know how you define that”. He went on: “We have a government and that’s why I am here”. The president’s answer struck me because, for several months now, Western media and commentators have said Nigeria doesn’t yet have a government, but Buhari and some Nigerians think otherwise.
So, who is right: Western commentators or President Buhari? In a sense, this discussion seems otiose since the president will name his cabinet soon, probably even before you read this. But I believe it’s still important to discuss the issue because how Buhari sees or defines “government” would influence how he operates as president. So, does Nigeria currently have a government? Well, my answer is “No”, and here are my reasons.

In any Western democracy, there is no government without a cabinet. It is the cabinet that makes the government. I believe this is also true of Nigeria. Let me put it this way. The constitution refers to “the Government of the Federation”. Is President Buhari “the Government of the Federation”? In my view, he is not. Yes, he is the head of that “Government”, but just as no human being can have a head without a body, in a democracy, no “Government” exists with just a head and no body, the cabinet! The constitution clearly recognises this by creating the “executive council of the Federation”, which it defines in section 144(5) as “the body of Ministers of the Government of the Federation”. So, to continue my “head” and “body” analogy, the president is the head and the “executive council of the federation” is the body, and only when both exist together is there a “Government”.

Now, in section 148(2), the constitution says that the President “shall hold regular meetings” (Note the words “shall” and “regular”) with the Vice President and “all the Ministers of the Government of Federation”, that is, the “body of Ministers”, for the purposes of “determining the general direction of domestic of domestic and foreign policies of the Government of the Federation”. Surely, the constitutional role of the body of Ministers means that the president is not expected to “determine the general direction of” government policies alone. He must do this with the “executive council of the Federation”. So, while the president can decide who should be ministers, subject to the approval of the Senate, he cannot decide whether or not to have the “executive council of the federation”.

However, the constitution is silent on how long the president can run the country for without a cabinet. But I would argue that it is not consistent with the letter or the spirit of section 148(2) of the constitution for a president to act for several months as a “sole administrator”, singularly “determining” the general direction of government policies. However, “determining the general direction of government policies” is not the same thing as executing policies, one is a policy-making role, the other a delivery function. Section 148(2) makes the federal executive council the policy-making body of the Federation, whereas section 5(5) gives the president “executive powers”, which he can exercise either “directly” or “through the vice-president and Ministers”. For me, the relationship between sections 5(5) and 148(2) is that while the president can, under section 5(5),refuse to delegate the exercise of an executive power to the vice-president or to a minister, he cannot, under section 148(2), “determine” the general direction of government policies alone without the policy-making body, the federal executive council.

Of course, the “doctrine of necessity” may apply. President Buhari said that, because of “the massive rot in the polity”, it was not in the national interest to appoint ministers without first putting in place “new rules of conduct and good governance”. National or public interest arguments tend to trump everything else, although the constitutionality of the long delay and the president’s rationale for it has not been tested in the courts. However, I believe that, just as it is not good corporate governance for a large corporation to be run without a board, except in a crisis situation, it is not good governance for a country to be run without a cabinet, unless in exceptional circumstances.

But it is important to make the point that the president is not “the Government of the Federation”. Of course, he is the head of the Federation itself, that is, the State, but the State is governed by the Government. While President Buhari is the head of that Government, we’ve waited for months for the “body”, the cabinet! For me, and for Western commentators, without the cabinet, there is no Government. So, when President Buhari told France 24 that “We have a government and that’s why I am here”, he was only half correct! He was there as head of state and in his executive capacity, but the “general direction” of the government policies he has been pursuing at home and abroad has not been “determined” in the proper way, since the policy-making body, the federal executive council, with which he is required to meet regularly to determine the broad policy thrusts for the country, does not currently exist.
All of this has wider implications for how the country should be governed. Specifically, it has implications for how President Buhari may treat the “executive council of the federation”, the body of Ministers, when he eventually establishes it. For if the president believes he is the “Government of the Federation” or takes a philosophical view that the country could be better run without Ministers, we may end up with a docile cabinet where the general directions of government policies are not robustly discussed and even challenged.
That is why I am also concerned about the president’s view of ministers. In the same France 24 interview, President Buhari was asked whether the non-existence of a finance minister was hurting the economy and affecting the behaviour of the market. He responded with an emphatic “No”, adding that “The ministers are there to make a lot of noise”. “They make a lot of noise”, he repeated, “but the work is being done by technocrats”.

To start with, the president’s answer suggests he does not know what influences market behaviour. The truth is that markets react to political signals as much as anything else and know that political authority resides with ministers and not civil servants. Furthermore, markets are creatures of mood, and are moved by sentiments. So, for instance, when a country is run for months without a cabinet, the market senses political tensions or constraints on government formation, and reacts accordingly. It’s very important not to send negative political signals to market operators because these might shape their expectation and behaviour. And market expectation is very crucial to the functioning of an economy. It’s, indeed, very strange the president didn’t know how the market works, which was why he thought he could run the country for months with no finance minister without spooking the market!
To be sure, President Buhari’s view about ministers has even wider implications for governance. Frankly, it’s extraordinary that the president chose, wittingly or unwittingly, to undermine his ministers even before they are appointed. Ministers must enjoy the confidence of the president and have authority within government to be effective. But by describing them as “noisemakers” and less important than civil servants in the process of governance, President Buhari pulled the rug from under the feet of his ministers even before they come into office. Those appointed as ministers will need to act quickly to set the tone, show strong leadership and establish their credibility with the president, their ministries and the public. They will need Buhari’s unflinching support to do that!

But we must address the fundamental questions that President Buhari’s comment raised: Are ministers “noisemakers”? And are civil servants more important than ministers in the process of governance? I have written previously on the relationship between ministers and civil servants and so do not wish to belabour the point. However, I must say that the president’s characterisations of ministers and civil servants do not accurately reflect the roles that both should play in a liberal democracy.
President Buhari cited “Western system” to justify his views. But in Britain, where Nigeria derives its system of permanent civil service from, ministers are not seen as “noisemakers”. They define and drive forward policy objectives. As the UK-based Institute for Government (IFG) put it, “policymaking in government is both political and technocratic”, with ministers presenting a vision and setting strategic objectives, while civil servants translate ministers’ vision and objectives into policies that work on the ground.

Recently, at a capacity-building programme for civil servants, President Buhari said that the problem of the civil service is “their inability to articulate a vision”. But this is not the role of the civil service. It is ministers who must possess and articulate a clear vision and set policy objectives, and provide the leadership needed to achieve them. The civil servants’ role is to design and implement policies that help the minister to achieve his vision or policy objective. Ministers should, of course, also be public advocates for government policies. It is only in that respect that one could describe them as “noisemakers”, but certainly not in the pejorative sense that the president used the word!

It is, of course, obvious that President Buhari has little regard for ministers, especially the political class, and that if he could he would run the country without ministers but rather with permanent secretaries and close advisers. Buhari said in the France 24 interview that his September deadline for naming his ministers was “coming too quickly for my liking”. Apparently he was finding the whole exercise difficult because of the “rot in the polity”. The president’s predicament is understandable. But in democratic politics, you cannot run a country without politicians. You have to work within the constraints imposed by intra-party politics and the need for representativeness and diversity to appoint reasonably talented and competent politicians as ministers, but with a good mix of “non-political” technocrats.

To be clear, if President Buhari’s definition of “government” and characterisations of ministers and civil servants reflect his philosophical positions, there must be some concerns about how he runs the affairs of the country. It is really important that he makes proper use of the federal executive council, as the country’s policy-making body, and gives ministers the authority to function well, without, of course, abdicating his responsibility to provide effective leadership!

 

Olu Fasan