Olisa Agbakoba, a senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, says the number of ministers appointed by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is way too much.
The president only required 12 ministers to run the government, the senior lawyer said on Saturday.
Agbakoba was reacting to the recent decision of the Tinubu’s administration to merge or scrap outrightly some government agencies and parastatals based on the recommendation of the Stephen Orosanye report.
The report had recommended the merging of some agencies and departments as a means of cutting down the cost of governance.
The magazine reports that President Tinubu recently agreed to implement the report last week based on the Federal Executive Council, FEC, meeting approval.
But the critics of the president faulted Tinubu on the issue, saying the objective of reducing the cost of administration had already been defeated considering the number of ministers appointed by the president after he came to office last year.
President Tinubu appointed 48 ministries, way higher than his predecessors since the country returned to democracy in 1999.
Agbakoba said the president required 12 ministers at most.
“What are you doing with 48 ministers? Agbakoba queried.
“It is just too big. You don’t need all that. I recommend a maximum of 12.
“So many ministries can be merged and others abolished. What is the Ministry of Information doing? All the press secretaries in the Villa cover what the Minister of Information does. Tell me, what does the Minister of Information do daily? Nothing!
“We also do not need Agriculture and Housing ministries. My take is that the government has no house and does not need a Minister of Housing.
“There should be a very clean sweep; you can bring it down from 48 to about 10 to 12 ministers.
“We should abolish that section in the constitution that says every state must produce a minister,” he stated.
Recall that a former vice president, Atiku Abubakar had advised Tinubu to follow the example of the President of Argentina by reducing his bloated government.
