BY the time this piece is published, the eight years of the administration of the President Muhammadu Buhari led government must have remained four days to roll to an end.
Obviously, all the appointees, including the ministers who served under the government, will also be exiting the stage along with the government on whose shoulder they rode to become ministers.
Again, by the time time this piece is being read, the probability is very high that the Buhari led cabinet must have been dissolved in line with the rules, thus, officially bringing to an end an era.
Therefore, the subsequent actions that may be taken by the outgoing ministers after the dissolution of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) may not be binding on the incoming government.
In other words, the incoming government has the prerogative to either totally upturn the inherited policies of the outgoing government, review them or at most cherry-pick any one found to be relevant to its cause.
Agreed that in the normal climes, because governance is regarded as a continuum which abhors any room for vacuum for the purpose of delivering dividends and seamless growth of the overall sectors of the economy of the concerned economy and businesses, an incoming government is expected to consider amongst the policies he inherited the ones that fall in line with its own for agenda for the common benefits of the majority.
The rule of the game therefore permits any incoming government official to equally jettison previous policies that fall short of general acceptance by those the outcome of such policies will affect.
This brings to the fore many of the policies of the outgoing minister of aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, that have been found to be unpopular amongst the key players in the sector.
While some of the policies would have impacted positively on the sector, they ended up creating chaos as they were badly packaged.
It is no longer news that in the last six months of the outgoing minister, his activities have further heightened tension in the sector in view of his refusal to come down from the proverbial high horse of rigidity; forgetting that the people whose interest he claimed to be protecting also deserve honour during policy formulation and implementation.
Towards the twilight of his tenure, it has been one-week, one trouble for the sector that deserves absolute forward-looking policies that ought to have helped in further lifting it higher amongst the global aviation community.
Sadly, the sector is grappling with myriad of crises ranging from multiple litigations, hostile business environment, high level of corruption, unfriendly workers’ atmosphere, nepotism, among others.
As if this barrage of crises were not enough, the minister did not even consider the fact that his eight-year tenure was almost over as the whole sector was again confronted with the news of the last-minute sacks of the chief executive officers of the agencies and some top management staff across the agencies under flimsy excuses.
In justifying the disorganisation, he remarked, “This is governance and it is a serious business. Whatever action or inaction you are taking, you are taking it on behalf of over 200 million people. There has been a new Accountant General of the Federation; there has been a new Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) Board, North East Development Commission (NEDC) and so many others. So, why me? Why is aviation the focus? What is the intention? What do you want to achieve? Why me?”
Why will the minister use what transpired in other sectors that he cited to defend his action when he should have known better that the aviation sector being one of the most regulated and in line with international standard cannot thrive where dirty politics and other emotional sentiments are allowed to relegate professionalism.
Even with the ongoing condemnation that has so far trailed the last-minute sacks by many key players, the minister seems to be unperturbed as he openly boasted that the sacks will continue until his last days in office.
Obviously, since the minister said he has the backing of President Buhari to do and undo, the whole sector is waiting to know why this last-minute sack is so important to the minister that he could not hands off to the incoming government that must definitely have its own agenda and the crop of people already being shopped to work with the incoming minister to clean the Augean stable he is leaving behind. If the outgoing minister thinks he can force his policies on the incoming minister, only time will tell.
