What has changed since Buhari became President? (4)

The on-going protests in the South-East requires creative handling by the federal government, governors of states that comprise the zone and Igbo leaders of thought to avoid unnecessary escalation of the situation. But the arrogant, insensitive, and threatening comments by a few military officers and cowardly hasty condemnation by some prominent Ndigbo are disingenuous, because both sides are trivialising the key issues of marginalisation, exclusion and alienation raised by the Biafran agitators, which lie at the heart of the troublesome unresolved “national question”.
President Muhammadu Buhari
President Muhammadu Buhari
It must be pointed out that President Buhari’s apparent indifference to the concerns of Ndigbo, from the time he was military head of state, through when he was Chairman, Petroleum (Special) Trust Fund to now that he is President, constitutes part of the remote and immediate causes of the renewed agitation for Biafra. It would take a Eureka experience or epiphany for Buhari to change his attitude towards Ndigbo generally. It follows that, on the issue of security and containment of centrifugal ethnic irredentism, there is no noticeable positive change since May 29, 2015.
We now come to the issue of ministerial appointments, which has elicited considerable discussion for quite some time. To begin with, although the President and many Nigerians presume that merger of ministries would save money for the government, there is no conclusive proof to that effect – there is even a report which debunks that presumption. Basically, it is the approved budget that determines the expenditure profile of ministries, which implies that although power, works and housing are now under one ministry, for instance, instead of two or three ministries, budgetary allocation to the bloated new ministry must reflect the critical nature of the sectors under it, which are very capital intensive in nature. Thus, under separate ministries power, and works and housing may get smaller budgetary allocation collectively than now that they are lumped into one ministry.
The delay by President Buhari in constituting his cabinet is uncalled for, judging by the fact that the list, when it was finally made public, is overwhelmingly a roster of politicians with corruption allegations hanging on some of them and individuals who helped APC capture power from the PDP.
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