By Nurat Uthman
President Bola Tinubu and the Federal Executive Council (FEC) have scrapped the Niger Delta Ministry, and the Ministry of Sports Development.
The decisions were taken on Wednesday at the meeting of the FEC in Abuja, as seen on the X handle of the Special Adviser Information and Strategy to President Tinubu, Bayo Onanuga.
There will now be a Ministry of Regional Development to oversee all the Regional Development Commissions, such as the Niger Delta Development Commission, North West Development Commission, South West Development Commission, and the North East Development Commission.
The National Sports Commission will take over the role of the Ministry of Sports.
The FEC also approved the merger of the Ministry of Tourism with the Ministry of Culture and Creative Economy.
Despite the announcement, Onanuga did not state what would happen to the ministers in charge of the scrapped ministries, or how they would function henceforth.
The Niger Delta Ministry is being headed by Abubakar Momoh, with John Enoh being in charge of the Ministry of Sports Development.
The development comes following recent clamour for a reduction in the number of ministries and political officers in the country to reduce governance costs.
Again, the Federal Government had in June, reiterated its commitment to the implementation of the Stephen Oronsaye report aimed at reducing the cost of governance through merging, scrapping and relocating departments and agencies.
The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, who spoke on the matter, said work was still in progress on the report.
Idris said, “There is a progress on it. You recall it (the report) was handed to a special committee to review. That committee is still working on it. Once it is ready, it will be presented to the government.”
Similarly, Onanuga had also said the Akume’s committee set up to implement the report, had yet to report back to the FEC as of June.
“The Federal Government has not put it on hold. It is something that is still on the table. Let us just wait for the Akume panel to finish working on the report,” Onanuga had said.
The 800-page Oronsaye report recommended that of the 541 statutory and non-statutory Federal Government parastatals, agencies, and commissions, 263 statutory agencies should be reduced to 161, 38 agencies abolished, 52 agencies merged, and 14 other ones should revert to departments in ministries.
Though the report was submitted to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan by the then Head of the Civil Service, Oronsaye in 2014, a former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke, rejected most of the recommendations.
In 2021, ex-President Muhammadu Buhari came up with a different approach by establishing two committees to review the report and the government’s white paper. While the second committee was to review MDAs established between 2014 and 2022, the former was headed by former Head of Service, Bukar Aji, and the latter by Ama Pepple.
In 2022, another white paper committee was created by a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation; Boss Mustapha, to examine the report of the Ama Pepple-led committee headed by Ebele Okeke. At the end of the drama, there was nothing to show that the Buhari administration was determined to implement until it left office.
In February 2024, the administration of President Bola Tinubu launched interest in the report and by March 8, the president set up an eight-member committee to look at the report, the White Paper and recommend its implementation and report back in 12 weeks.
The committee has the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, George Akume as chairman; Head of the Civil Service, Folashade Yemi-Esan; Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Abubakar Bagudu; and Minister of Justice and Attorney-General, Lateef Fagbemi; Director-General of Bureau of Public Service Reform, Dasuki Arabi; among others as members.
