A former Chairman, National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Prof. Chidi Odinkalu, has berated President Muhammadu Buhari for the delay in forming his cabinet.
Odinkalu said that the sense of urgency Nigeria’s problems impose appeared lost on the president, hence the delay in choosing ministers.
Reacting to why it appears difficult to choose ministers, the lawyer said, “I am not able to divine the president’s mind nor am I able to understand it.
“A second term doesn’t happen by accident. He campaigned for it. The election took place on 23 April.
“It’s well over 40 days since the inauguration and nearly 30 days since his June 12 re-do of inauguration.
“My view is that the president doesn’t care much about governance. His trophy was the pursuit of power not the use to which it is put. He has already won and feels vindicated.
“So he had no need to seek to perform or care about performing. That is the tragedy of where we are. It is sad because Nigeria’s problems and structural fundamentals impose a sense of urgency that seems lost on the President Buhari and all the folks around him.”
Odinkalu said that the delay was costly the nation dearly.
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Describing how the delay is impacting the country, Odinkalu told The Sun, “You can see it everywhere. There are both real and institutional-intangible costs.
“Take the example of protection of Nigerians overseas. That is ordinarily the remit of the Foreign Affairs minister.
“You may have seen or read about the letter by the Anambra State Government to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation about the case of Mrs. Uju Ndubuisi, the Deputy DG of the Chartered Institute of Insurance of Nigeria (CIIN), who was killed in a South African hotel while attending a conference there.
“The governor complained in his letter that the South Africans were taking advantage of the absence of a Foreign Affairs minister in Nigeria to not treat the case with the seriousness it deserves.
“That is the kind of consequence we are talking about. Take the RUGA controversy too: the architects of RUGA planted it deliberately in an interregnum in which there are no ministers, seeking to take advantage of an institutional vacuum in government.
“President Buhari has normalised sclerosis as a form of government and Nigerians have gone into sleep mode about it.
“You will see, when he comes out with a list of ministers, his paid Vuvuzela will hail him to the highest heavens. We no longer have any expectations of how things should be done.”
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