Bola Tinubu’s Ministry Of Cow And Chicken Affairs

 By Ugoji Egbujo

It’s haphazard. One moment, the Federal Government is pursuing the Orasanye reforms; the next, it’s churning out fresh ministries to serve political expediency. We took away the petrol subsidy to save the economy, only to become obsessed with distributing money and food to the public as if we can’t sit to think.

Now, we have a ministry for cow and chicken affairs. A full-blooded ministry for only livestock. Who knows why the title ‘Development’ is attached to it? Some say the entire thing is a peace offering to the Miyetti Allah and company. Others say the suspicious timing makes it a lollipop in the mouth of a group wailing against the Samoa Agreement.

It could be anything but it doesn’t resemble principled and purposeful governance. There is this sing-song about the cattle industry being a trillion-dollar economy. It is evidently huge and growing. But perhaps we need a ministry of Bitcoin, too.

There is an existing but idle Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security. It has a living department for livestock. It might as well continue to oversee root crops, fertilizer and fisheries until another section of the country finds marginalisation in that arrangement. If that happens, and they make enough trouble about 2027, we could create a new ministry for Aquaculture or Marine biology and justify it by saying that the Chinese are growing algae in the oceans and positioning themselves for trillions of dollars in biofuel. We won’t be bothered by our hopeless inability to run basic refineries and power stations to provide electricity and fuel for national development despite over 50 years of abundant hydrocarbon and gas extraction and huge rivers. We have an uncanny ability to justify anything.

The president has urged the governors to pursue the idea of a cattle ministry— to run with the opportunity—as if states and local government councils had lacked the constitutional power to use their resources to promote animal husbandry all the while. The lucky president will now produce two more ministers, one senior and one junior minister, and a multitude of advisers—all for the brand-new ministry.

As critics begin to mock and poke fun at the ridiculous idea, Presidential aides will scour the world to find countries that have ministries for cattle and use them to bludgeon critics into silence. They will say that the President is fulfilling his campaign promises. The governors, on their part, will support the president by travelling to some foreign countries for sightseeing at dairy farms before returning to set up white elephant ranches and share monies with their cronies.

The president gave the accolades to Abdullahi Ganduje, his shrewd party chairman, before saying he didn’t want to contaminate the cattle reforms with politics. The president likes to joke sometimes. Ganduje is politics. Ganduje, the midwife of this Ministry for Cattle, knows why it was birthed now. The name is Ministry of Livestock Development. Before long, ‘Development’ will become ‘Research and Development’ so that the masses will know that the government is serious and futuristic. If Ganduje had thought like Ganduje, he might have named it the Ministry of Livestock Technology. Technology in Nigeria is just pretty for politics

The aim of this special ministry, which experienced Ganduje of Kano has conceived and gathered experts for, is to sort out the perennial herders and farmers clashes by introducing the wild herders roaming the bush to some modernity. That way, we can reduce the wild wandering called nomadism and staunch the appetite for bloodletting.
Perhaps, if the new ministry isn’t able to address the issues adequately, we can remove the chickens from the cows and create a separate ministry for chicken affairs so that an exclusive Cattle Ministry can concentrate on Fulani herdsmen while chickens can perhaps be paired with pigs. Because the pig is big business, too, despite the religious stigma.

Fortunately, the president isn’t doing Lagoslokan with this ministry. He has established a Presidential Reforms Committee to be run by Mahmoud Jega. The committee will think out solutions for this cattle problem. That committee will do the spade work and clear the landmines for the ministry. Hopefully, a seasoned politician from the north with some cattle rearing instincts will be made the minister so that many birds are hit with that one stone. 

Whether it provides enduring solutions to the old challenges or not, Tinubu would say he tried. It’s not good to walk near 2027 with many Northern politicians saying that Tinubu is a champion of tribalism. That wasn’t the original intent of Emilokan, which was derived from Yorubalokan that fateful day in Abeokuta. Tinubu is a talent hunter. That should be accepted by all. If he thinks that he needs more Yorubas in sensitive positions then we must accept that as sagacity and support the president like patriotic human beings.

While announcing the coming of the new ministry, the president asked the ministers of budget and finance to put heads together to find money for the cattle venture. They must find the money. Their predecessors found money for rice growers by Ways and Means. NNPC could have been co-opted. However, the NNPC appears broke as it has been looking for money to borrow. So the finance minister might ask the CBN to look for the recipe of their former boss.

Part of the problem we face is that we are planning to introduce the ease of doing business back to the importation of rice to save the country from the hunger instigated by the removal of petrol subsidy and floatation of the naira. It is a head spinning vortex. Like the gods are working against us from all angles. But hopefully, we wont finish printing money for the cow ministry and end up removing tariffs to encourage beef importation from China any soon.

Our leaders love us. They always have good intentions. That’s what they say. The only problem is that often their heads can’t carry the big picture. And sometimes they act before thinking. Just to make us happy. So they think piecemeal and can’t connect all their thoughts. Some say corruption facilitates this culture of haphazardness. Other say its incompetence. 

They leave their wives and children at home to meet at night to try to solve our problems but end up creating bigger problems for us all. Some patriots asked the president to create a think tank to help him think through his policies and find coherence and purpose so that we could stop moving around in circles. But they forget that the president is an astute politician who prepared for many years for this office. So let’s not carry patriotism on our heads and make suggestions that leave him looking like an unprepared newbie or a deer stranded before bright headlamps.

The herder-farmer issue is an economic and security challenge. But there is a National Economic Council. There is a National Council Of States. There is a National Security Council. There are the Depts of Livestock in all the Ministries of Agriculture at both federal and state levels. If these bodies can’t meet one of the single most important reasons for their existence, then they should fold up. The president likes to talk about sacrifices. 

He says that the country needs ‘sacrificing’ citizens. But the president is busy ballooning his cabinet and duplicating jobs. His government has failed to show a sense of cost consciousness. It’s easy to yank off subsidies, remove all subsidies from the poor, and strangulate them with taxes. That will yield nothing if the president and governors can’t conserve funds by reducing government size and expenditure. Corruption is freely ravaging the system and swallowing up everything that is squeezed out of the masses.

Mr President, can you stop and restart? The country needs honest and purposeful leadership.

*Dr. Egbujo is a commentator on public issues