MONDAY X-RAY: Ministerial Faux Pas
IN saner climes some ministers should have lost their jobs on account of their embarrassing conduct on the issue of what this writer has dubbed The Chinese 12. On April 8, 2020 the Health minister, Dr. Osagie Ehanire gleefully received a twelve-man team of Chinese ‘medical experts’ at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja ostensibly to assist us in containing the spread of COVID-19 pandemic and for other purposes connected thereto. This was despite the opposition of the Nigerian Medical Association and other Nigerians who doubted the sincerity of China.
These Chinese ‘medical experts’ we were told would be quarantined for fourteen days before they could give us their expertise. No sooner thereafter, the movement and activities of these Chinese became shrouded in secrecy! Whether they were actually quarantined, whether they interacted with Nigerian Centre for Disease Control, whether the Nigerian Medical Association monitored their activities, and whether they actually did anything relating to what the minister told us they were here for became issues that occupied the public space.
Nigerians rightly demanded to know what became of the ‘official’ Chinese ‘medical experts’ that our Health minister abandoned national duties to receive. The press that is constitutionally empowered to hold government accountable to the people started asking questions from the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19. The answers to the myriad of questions were not too forthcoming!
Aghast, the nation was reduced to a moronic state when some semblance of responses came out from some of our ministers! Shamelessly, the Health minister begged to be spared the headache of being asked about the whereabouts of the ‘experts’ he received on behalf of the Federal Government. Apparently, aside receiving them at the airport he knew next to nothing about their mission in the country. Or so he made us to believe the shenanigans or charade. The Interior minister, Rauf Aregbesola whose ministry issued them with visas could also not disclose the type of visas issued to them! The Foreign Affairs minister, Goffrey J. K. Onyeama could not tell a bewildered nation the type of Agreement the country entered into with China that facilitated the coming of these ‘experts’.
Was Nigeria fooled? Was the purported intervention botched? Was there incompetence somewhere? Was the country short-changed? Any conspiracy theory somewhere? Did China Construction Company play any role in this faux pas? What is the national security implication of this irresponsibility? When did we degenerate to this abyss? I could go on with many questions begging for answers.
It is apparent to me that most of our public officers are ill-prepared and ill-equipped for the onerous responsibilities they shoulder. It is manifestly clear that many of them are mere ‘nattering nabobs of negativism’ and lack the capacity to contribute to the emancipation of the country. What has happened to the performance measurement and quality control mechanism?
Many Development experts have been warning our country on how to approach the Greek gifts of China. We are being warned on how to dissect the carrots being dangled at us by China. I like China as a country that is giving the rest of the world an alternative to the pride often exhibited by the western world. However, I am uncomfortable, like many other analysts, about their disdain for transparency, accountability and good conscience.
The experience of some African countries under the jugular of Chinese debts should be a lesson to us. If care is not taken, China would soon be dominating our economy and dictating to us the way we should be conducting our affairs. In other words, our freedom and livelihood would be controlled by China if our propensity to patronise China is not strategically addressed.
Strategic communication is the soul of any enterprise. According to Andy Stanley ‘every time I stand to communicate, I want to take one simple truth and lodge it in the heart of the listener. I want them to know that one thing and know what to do with it’. Regrettably, most of our public officers have not keyed into the desideratum of communication in government.
The National Assembly should take a look into The Chinese 12 faux pas. A Nigerian aircraft went to China to ferry ‘experts’ from China with consignments meant to assist us in fighting the coronavirus scourge and all we are now hearing is a babble of discordant tunes and reading garbage that should be fed to idiots. We surely deserve a better deal and some respects from our public officers.
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