By Ayodele Oni
In an ironic twist, Festus Keyamo, who is serving out his tenure as Minister of State for Labour, has advised the incoming administration of Bola Tinubu to scrap the Office of Minister of State, dismissing it as unconstitutional.
“Mr. President, the concept or designation of “Minister of State” is a constitutional aberration and is practically not working for many so appointed.
“Successive Governments have come and gone and many who were appointed as Ministers of State have not spoken out at a forum such as this because of the risk of sounding ungrateful to the Presidents who appointed them.”
The remarks were contained in a prepared valedictory statement by Keyamo on Wednesday.
He pointed out that all Nominees that appeared before the National Assembly were screened and confirmed as Ministers only for some to be designated as Ministers of state when portfolios were allocated.
Citing constitutional provisions, the Senior Advocate of Nigeria stated that Minister of State is not in the Statute.
“Any appointment under subsection (2) of this section by the President shall be in conformity with the provisions of section 14(3) of this Constitution:- provided that in giving effect to the provisions aforesaid the President shall appoint at least one Minister from each State, who shall be an indigene of such State.”
“In addition to the above, the Ministers-designate appear before the Senate and are grilled and cleared AS MINISTERS, not as Ministers in some instances and Ministers of State in some other instances.
“It is at the point of assignment of portfolios that successive Presidents then reclassified some as “Ministers of State”.
Agreeing that the President has the prerogative to assign portfolios to nominees already screened by the National Assembly, Keyamo pointed out that: “Yes, I concede Mr. President can do that, but not by a designation different from that prescribed by the Constitution.
“Simply put, it is akin to the President assigning responsibilities to the office of the Vice-President and re-designating that office as “Deputy President” under our present Constitution. That is clearly impossible. Why then should that of the Ministers be different?”
According to him, argument that number of offices are reduced to save cost, leading to two Ministers in a Ministry, is no longer tenable.
“Obviously, the argument that two Ministers are cramped into some Ministries in order not to unnecessarily proliferate Ministries and, therefore, save Government’s money is no longer tenable.
“This is because Government does not need any extra infrastructure or more money to maintain all Senior 36 Ministers or even a bit more appointed as is now the custom.
“This is because the present Ministers and Ministers of State have their separate offices, cars, security personnel and personal aides. So, what is the point?”
On the way forward, he called for duplication of the Ministries in such a way that only a Minister will be in charge.
“In my case, whilst the schedule of my colleague had to do more with Labour and Productivity, mine had to do more with Employment.
“The Directorates in my Ministry that were under my office would then be fully under the Minister of Employment, without any double loyalty to the Minister of Labour and Productivity.
“We can also have a Minister of Trade and another Minister of Investment. We can have a Minister of Education (Tertiary) and another Minister of Education (Primary and Secondary).
“We can have a Minister of Mines and another Minister of Steel; we can have a Minister of Works and another Minister of Housing and so on and so forth.
“In all of these, no extra infrastructure is needed to sustain this suggested arrangement. The present infrastructure and present personnel in the Ministries can very well sustain it.
“It will be at no extra cost to government. This is preferable than successive governments continuing with this present unconstitutional arrangement.”
ot a few people have described the Office of the Minister of State as redundant, especially if one is working under a strong personality who is the “senior” Minister.
When Senator Udo Udoma, SAN, was appointed a Minister, and given the portfolio of a Minister of State, he refused to resume, and quietly went back to the Senate.
