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President Umaru Yar’adua administration’s slow approach to governance is informed by the need to adhere strictly to due process and the rule of law, the Minister of Finance, Dr. Shamsudeen Usman, said in Washington D.C at the weekend.
Dr. Usman addressed newsmen at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) meeting which ended at the weekend. He said President Yar’adua would govern slowly but progressively, unlike the hasty approach of the ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo’s government. The minister stated that the Yar’adua administration would not sacrifice due process and the rule of law for hastiness. He was reacting to a question that eleven-months into the new government not much has been achieved and the 2008 budget was yet to be assented to by the president. "This is an opportunity for me to address that because we are coming from a mentality that unfortunately has been ingrained in us by so many years of military rule and the last nine years of semi-military rule. We are changing the psychology of Nigerians. I have read many articles written by some of you that the government is too slow.This idea of doing something with immediate effect resulted into projects that are not properly designed and properly costed, due process not followed", he explained. Said he: "the whole quarrel by the president with the budget is the inclusion of so many new projects and the president said to the lawmakers what he was trying to do was to complete the ongoing projects. If you take the road sector alone we have projects close to a trillion naira alone. So even if we shut off other projects and do road alone there isn’t enough money to do it. Of course some of them will take three to four years to construct. This rushing into project without proper design and without following due procedure is what has led us into the NIPPs. See the mess that is there. In fact one of them has taken N9billion and they don’t even know where the site of the project is. "Nigeria has signed the Lagos-Kano railways contract. It has even paid money but you will be surprise to hear that it is only now that the contractor appointed another company to do the design. A contract has been signed on Mambilla hydro electric dam but take anybody to Mambilla and say show me physically where the dam is supposed to be, they will not be able to show you. This is so because there is no design yet and a contract has been signed. The president is slow because he wants things to be done properly. One of the earlier meetings of the Federal Executive Council, he said no minister should bring any contract to the FEC without detailed designs and costing for those projects. So really that is why I said that Nigerians have been so used to doing things with immediate effect, and where has the immediate effect landed us? "It has landed us in deep trouble. Look at what is happening in the power sector and many other sectors. It is the same story. Nigerians have a choice. Do you want us to rush? However, if the private sector proposal works then it relieves the government. A lot of works have been going on. Nigerians don’t even know. I admit that we have not been so good at communication. In terms of communication, I admit we are poor, but before long the president will come out and address some of these issues."
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