The Governor of Kano State, Abba Yusuf, has placed the state’s newly inaugurated commissioners on a six-month probation period.
Development Diaries reports that the governor, who made this known during his first executive council meeting, said commissioners who performed well would be retained and those who underperformed would be sacked.
The governor said he will head the monitoring and evaluation team to monitor the performances of the commissioners and their ministries.
The action of the governor is commendable.
Government appointments have to progress from being ‘job for the boys’ to ones that are managed by persons with competence.
Development Diaries had earlier called on President Bola Tinubu to ensure he appoints ministers based on relevant skills and experience and not only focus on repaying political allies.
Tinubu apparently has many political allies to repay, but he must not do that with appointments to the federal cabinet.
Ministerial appointments must take a different turn this time around and the best cannot be achieved in Nigeria with incompetent ministers.
It is still too early to forget what Nigeria went through in the past eight years under President Muhammadu Buhari.
Many of the ministers who served under the former president were grossly incompetent and they underperformed in office for eight years.
In fact, one of the ministers, Adamu Adamu, who served in the Ministry of Education, publicly admitted he did not know anything about education when he was appointed to head the ministry.
Following that comment, Development Diaries called for the sacking or resignation of the minister. However, the president failed to take the right action.
This time around, anyone who does not have demonstrable ability should not be made a minister. This is where monitoring and evaluation comes in after appointments.
The knowledge and skills of ministerial nominees, as well as their policy plans with well-considered deadlines and key performance metrics must be evaluated through engagement in certain areas.
While Development Diaries commends Governor Yusuf for taking the right step, we call on him to ensure he backs up his words with action.
Also, President Tinubu and other state governors must ensure that apart from appointing competent ministers and commissioners, as well as other key positions, they set targets for their performance and carry out continuous monitoring and evaluation.
Photo source: Abba Kabir Yusuf
