Following the appointment of Professor Ibrahim Gambari as Buhari New Chief of Staff. The New CoS will be the second in the presidential leadership under President Buhari. This appointment came in the middle of COVID-19, one of the biggest crisis confronting Buhari’s presidency and preceded by Mallam Abba Kyari who died as a victim of the coronavirus outbreak last month. His appointment does not need confirmation from the Senate being considered not part of the 1999 constitution.
Recall that several newspapers in the country had earlier published the list of maneuvers for the job amongst sitting Governors, serving ministers, serving senators, former SGF, former ministers as well as former Governors to replace Abba Kyari. But President Buhari has settled for a man least expected and someone who has never been known or mentioned for any political ambition in the murky waters of Nigerian politics.
The New Chief of Staff has had a long career in diplomatic missions. He was a former Nigerian ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations from 1990 to 1995. He was also minister of Foreign Affairs of Nigeria between 1984 to 1985 and worked closely with regional leaders, institutions, and governments, particularly within the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on the economic and political development of the sub-region.
At the global level, Prof Gambari was the Chairman of the United Nations Special Committee Against Apartheid 1990 to 1994 during which he worked closely with African governments to coordinate UN policy to eradicate apartheid, thereby building trust and confidence with government and policymakers in member countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
However, Prof Ibrahim Gambari was a resident special representative to the United Nations Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Mission to Angola between 2000 to 2003. In 2007, Prof Gambari was drafted as UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy on Cyprus, Zimbabwe, and Myanmar. He was entrusted with different mandates including Iraq Special Adviser by the United Nations among others.
Despite Gambari’s high profile, his new portfolio has become a center of attraction to power brokers where many elites and citizens had already perceived his predecessor Abba Kyari as a de-facto president in the past. This is visible because the presidency holds an inordinate amount of central power and government funds with the Chief of Staff deciding who has access to the president accords immense power and influence on CoS to the president.
President Buhari has in 2019 told his cabinet members and institutions in Nigeria to keep every correspondence through his Chief of Staff. This means all government meetings, memos, and action plans will be passed on to the CoS for the attention of the President. Nigerian ministers and governors had learned to work by going through the late Abba Kyari before getting to the President.
Recall in 2017, Gambari’s Predecessor became embroiled in a public fracas with Mrs. Oyo-Ita, the former Head of Service, who was later removed and arrested by the EFCC. Similarly, in 2020, Babagana Monguna in a leaked memo accused Abba Kyari of meddling in the matters of National Security.
When the Federal Government through the Nigeria Communication Commission (NCC) slammed a $5billion fine on South African Telecommunication giant MTN for a security-related infraction. A Massive allegation was inputted on Abba Kyari and perceived to have collected N500million in bribe to influence the FG to cut down the fine. But Kyari until his death, the presidency strenuously denied the allegation as no concrete evidence has been made public.
In this new role, Prof. Gambari will serve as an integrator connecting workstream in the Villa, a traffic controller between President Buhari and his leadership team; and a communicator linking the president team and broader government institutions in Nigeria. Buhari will expect prof Gambari to become an honest broker and truth-teller when he needs a wide-ranging view without turf considerations.
Ideally, his most strategic responsibility will be assisting President Buhari in thinking through critical issues, setting policies, and making sure they are implemented. Prof Gambari will be extra eyes and ears by anticipating problems or pointing out political potholes that Buhari may not recognize.
The major challenge likely to confront Prof. Gambari is the theory of cabal in the presidency. An element that is believed to be controlling policy direction, key appointments, contracts approval, the grumbling voice of cabinet ministers from lack of access to discuss important national issues with the President. Suffice it to that the New CoS wears the crown as the presidential gatekeeper.
Another most important task is how Prof. Gambari will assist President Buhari in responding to coronavirus pandemic in Nigeria as toll reaches 5,000 cases. Buhari’s administration is currently battling to implement an emergency drastic economic policy to stop the country from sliding into recession as predicted by the IMF. And apart from the multiple insecurity challenges, including a devastating Boko-Haram insurgency that has left Nigerian Military stretched.
Buhari’s headache also hinges on power sector reform which he has set up a committee and headed by Vice President Yemi Osibanjo under National Economic Council. Gambari will no doubt assume membership of that committee and properly coordinate presidents’ decisions on key areas. Before his death, Mallam Abba Kyari led the German/Nigerian governments Siemens initiative to improve power supply on behalf of President Muhammadu Buhari
In the power sector, the Mambilla hydropower project is central to Buhari’s administration with the approval of $4.8billion to be financed by the Chinese Export-Import (Exim) Bank in providing 85% of the project cost and 15% funding cost provided by the Federal Government.
The EPE contract for the Mambilla Power Project was awarded to a joint venture between three Chinese companies, sinohydro Corporation of China, China Ghezouba Group Corporation of China, and China Geo-Engineering Group Corporation in 2017. Nearly 3 years after the contract was awarded, the Chinese halt interest in financing the project owing to a lawsuit at the International Court of arbitration in Paris between Nigerian Government and Sunrise Power accusing the Federal Government of breaching contract agreement in 2003. The court in Paris resulted in the arbitration award of $200million against the Nigerian Government.
As the legal dispute has now been laid to rest, President Buhari is still waiting for the Chinese exports import bank to release funds for the construction of the Mambilla power plant. But there is a setback in the project host-state, Taraba. The Federal Government, through the Federal Ministry of Power, has paid out N800million to Taraba State Government for a survey to be carried out on the project site in February.
In March similarly, The Federal Government also released N500million to the government of Taraba State for public sensitization on communities in the Mambilla Plateau. So far, no survey is currently going on on the Mambilla power project site, or even a sensitization exercise has been conducted by Gov. Darius.
President Buhari has made several campaign promises and key among which is to tackle the energy deficit as a key priority and pledging to rehabilitate dilapidated power infrastructure and build new ones, including the Mambila power project in Taraba State.
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Currently, Nigeria has 13,000MW installed electricity-production capacity, about 80% of which comes from gas-fired plants. Only 7,500MW is available for distribution and about 4,000MW is dispatched to the grid each day. The minister of power, Engr. Sale Mamman has in several media correspondence lamented how distribution companies are unable to take up generated power due to dilapidated transmission infrastructure in the power sector.
The issue of the power sector will certainly dominate the major assignments of prof. Gambari as Buhari’s new Chief of Staff. Let alone the ongoing construction of the second Niger Bridge, Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Kaduna-Abuja Expressway as well as many critical infrastructures projects in the country.
Succinctly, the appointment of a new Chief of State to President Buhari is widely seen by many Nigerians as a chance for the rejuvenation of presidential leadership to which Prof. Gambari is a gold standard to the position. Prof Gambari must consider himself as Buhari’s new confidant and a bellwether of Executive powers.
As a diplomat, Gambari is expected to bring his wealth of experience to bear in helping President Buhari to coordinate action plans against coronavirus in West Africa as the entire region now relies on Nigeria as a model. Equally an eyebrow will be raised on how Prof. Gambari will advise President Buhari on issues of National Security without putting himself in the middle of any holdup or controversy with the NSA.
The new Chief of State should bear in mind that the war against terror has known to be the foundation of Buhari’s administration and anyone serving in the capacity of a chief staff to Buhari must ensure that the administration succeeds in combating the ravaging insurgency in the northeast.
Put simply, Prof. Gambari is now dutiful to help President Buhari to maintain a stronger and healthier relationship between the three organs of government namely, the executive, legislature, and the judiciary. This is central to the consolidation of the best democratic practice in Nigeria.
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