Former Nigeria’s Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu, has accused ex-President Muhammadu Buhari of “rarely supervising” members of his cabinet.
Shittu, who made this known while speaking on Channels Television’s on Wednesday, advised the President Bola Tinubu to learn from the past government and do better in terms of the coordination and supervision of his ministers.
President Tinubu had on Wednesday, while declaring open, a three-day Cabinet Retreat at the State House Conference Centre in Abuja, challenged his ministers to deliver on their responsibilities or get sacked.
Shittu in his response to President Tinubu’s warning to his ministers, commended him for putting his cabinet members on pressure to deliver, while further advising him not to hesitate to sack ineffective members of his cabinet.
Shittu opined that sacking a minister is not a difficult task in as much as a replacement will be provided from the same state as the dismissed official.
The minister while recalling his time as minister during the first term of the Buhari administration, said:
“Buhari did not give anybody any threat as such. As I said, Buhari is not Tinubu and Tinubu is not Buhari.
“What I do know of Buhari, with all due respect to him, is that he is a more reserved person. He’s one person who gives you job (with due respect to him) and he rarely ask how you are going about it. It’s unfortunate but I have to say this in national interest so that government coming after him will learn lessons. Once you are there, you are there.
“In Buhari’s government, if you don’t go and meet him, for the next four years, he probably would not ask of you.
“Every Wednesday, people bring their memos and they are debated and all of that but in terms of policy formulation and supervision, we rarely did have such things and I am happy that President Tinubu is trying to do things differently.
“In his statement today, that is a sign that he (Tinubu) wants to do things differently. What I think he needs to add to it is to create transparent, quantifiable milestones for each ministry.”
