Today, President Bola Tinubu‘s newly-appointed cabinet ministers take office. There are 45 of them. These are men and women assembled to drive the President’s Renewed Hope Agenda for the next four years. Membership of the Federal Executive Council (FEC), as it’s so called, is a mixed grill of accomplished technocrats and career politicians. It’s not unknown to the new ministers that they are coming on board at a time the nation is struggling with debilitating socio-economic convulsions.

The indices are quite frightening on all fronts. A thoroughly impoverished populace is grappling with an enervating miasma of fear and uncertainty. The President’s men and women need not be reminded that they have come to inherit a badly broken country that needs urgent fixing. Nigeria currently stands at a crossroads; so every sector is crucial at this critical point in time.

Every Ishmaelite must be ready to contribute his or her mite in quality and dedicated service. However, of uppermost urgency are the economy and security sectors. They are the fulcrums that support the entire superstructure. The two sectors are intertwined and are mutually involved in shaping developments in other sectors. The economy derives its oxygen from security, just as security gets its nourishment from the economy by way of funding. Failure in either or both of these two sectors spells dire consequences for any entity, as it is being witnessed in the country today. So Mr Wale Edun, who is manning the post as Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, has got quite a sweaty job to do. The national economy is down on all fours. According to the Debt Management Office (DMO), Nigeria’s debt service-to-revenue ratio as of second quarter of 2023 stood at 73.5 per cent. The DMO, in a recent assessment of the situation, described the figure as unsustainable and a threat to the survival of the economy. It’s a blight on any economy that spends about 80 per cent or more of its revenue on debt servicing. For Nigeria, the consequences have come in a basket: dwindling federal revenue, shrinking investments across sectors, stunted economic growth, foreign exchange scarcity, sorry state of the naira, mass unemployment, dizzying inflation rates, crippled purchasing power, high cost of living with its attendant low living standards, blinding poverty, hunger, widespread disillusionment, frustration, youth restiveness among other excruciating conditions that Nigerians are being forced to coexist with. Sadly, among a plethora of corrupt practices and divisive policies was the pleasure the preceding administration took in mortgaging the future of next generation of Nigerians to foreign lenders. But the new administration owes Nigerians a patriotic duty of putting in place measures to reverse the ugly situation. President Tinubu must have chosen Edun for the job based on his conviction that the renowned economist and financial expert has got what it takes to turn the economy around. So the ball is in Edun’s court.

But whatever successes that may be recorded on the economic front may not endure without adequate security, kinetic or otherwise, to guarantee their sustenance and expansion. There are urgent needs to recalibrate and refocus the security architecture in such a way that it can respond effectively to existing and emerging security threats. Although the scale appears to have reduced a bit, widespread insecurity and sundry crimes still pervade the homeland.

There are fresh cases of terrorism, banditry, abduction, kidnap for ransom, mindless killings by non-state actors, invasion of unpoliced communities by armed marauders, raids on farming communities by killer herders, incessant ethno-religious clashes and human rights abuses by untamed security operatives. Cybercrimes are also taking a bottom-line toll on private and public corporate entities.

The banking and other financial sub-sectors and numerous high-net-worth individuals have been counting their losses to cybercrime entrepreneurs in billions of naira year in year out. So the President’s security team, headed by the National Security Adviser (NSA), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, must be on its toes at all times. As the NSA, Ribadu must gather enough steam to coordinate the entire security architecture. His beat covers the Armed Forces, the Police, the Department of State Services (DSS), the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), all paramilitary agencies and other allied bodies. Ribadu and his team must be made to understand that investments and achievements that the country may record within its borders can be ruined in a jiffy through security lax.

The new security team should learn a vital lesson from the country’s railway transportation system that is beleaguered by incessant attacks by terrorists and bandits. It’s quite agonising considering the fact that the entire railway infrastructure was built with borrowed funds from China. Insecurity has taken a heavy toll on agriculture and food production. The country is currently grappling with food insecurity mainly because subsistence agriculture has come under threat from itinerant armed invaders. Many farmers in the hinterlands have been forced to flee their communities to escape being killed, maimed, abducted, and raped or being subjected to other forms of inhuman treatment. Medium and large scale agricultural productions are not spared the agony. The story is the same from the North-east to the North-west, down to the North-central, traversing the South-east to the South-south, down to the South-west.

The South-south presents a peculiar case of crude oil theft, ranging from siphoning into handy plastic cans to heavy vessels at industrial scale. This has been a major source of massive cut in government’s oil revenue over the years. Ribadu and his team have their jobs clearly cut out for them. Economic diversification should be one of the major thrusts of the administration. That’s where the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy comes in. The World Bank defines Blue Economy as the sustainable use of ocean resources to benefit economies, livelihoods and ocean ecosystem health.

According to experts, Nigeria’s untapped blue economy potential could be about N30 trillion per annum. Activities in this sub-sector include maritime shipping, fishing and aquaculture, coastal tourism, renewable energy, water desalination, undersea cabling, seabed extractive industries and deep sea mining, marine genetic resources, biotechnology, among others. The sector can also be harnessed to combat climate change, given the advantage of the Atlantic Ocean. Nigeria has no fewer than eight coastal states within its territorial boundaries.

They are Lagos, Ondo, Ogun, Edo, Cross River, Bayelsa, Delta and Akwa-Ibom. It is expected that Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, who has been appointed to man the newly-created ministry will be imaginative and proactive enough on the job.

He will need the services of specialists and experts in the field for him to make any impact. There is also much work to do in the traditional key ministries like Education, Health, Power, Agriculture, Water Resources, Works, Petroleum and Gas Resources, Defence, Justice and others. Thankfully, Prof Ali Pate who is assigned to the Health Ministry/Social Welfare and Prof Tahir Mamman who is taking charge of Education are widely adjudged to be round pegs in round holes.

The two accomplished scholars should have what it takes to redirect the two sectors that have suffered neglect under past administrations. Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), who is coming on board as Attorney General and Minister of Justice, is believed to be well-equipped to straighten the crooked path in which the country’s justice system had been steered, most especially in the last eight years.

It is incumbent on Adebayo Adelabu as Minister of Power to energise the power sector to stimulate investment and grow the economy. The private sector, especially small and medium scale entrepreneurs, is the major employer of labour in the country.

The small and medium scale businesses need stable electricity supply to enable them function optimally. The new Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Bosun Tijani, now has the opportunity to do what he knows how to do best. Tijani has a job to do in the country’s digital switchover project. Presently, 29 of the 36 states are still stuck on analogue. Also, his ministry should collaborate with the various security agencies in fighting sundry insecurity and cybercrime with the help of technology.

Career politicians among the new ministers must be aware of public perception about them. Not a few public commentators sneered and jeered at them when their names came up on the President’s ministerial nomination lists. Nigerians have their reservations about quite a number of them.

The onus is on them to prove their critics wrong as they take up new responsibilities at the national level. The President has appointed them but he cannot do the job for them. Judging by the mood of the nation, the President will do himself a lot of good if he can draw a line between political patronage and the common good. Any of them that are seen performing below average should be shown the exit door. This is a period of national emergency. (The Nation)

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