By Aaron Ossai
As African nations continue to battle development headwinds, former President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, has charged leaders not to politicise appointments into key economic positions, stressing that only top-class professionals and technocrats must be selected to be members of the economic management team.
Dr. Jonathan noted that some African leaders select their cabinet based on relationship or patronage. According to him, hiring competent hands to man major departments in Government is critical to the kind of service delivery Africa needs.
In a statement signed by his Special Adviser, Ikechukwu Eze, the former President stated this in his keynote speech at the Executive Leadership Retreat organized by the Ghanaian Government and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in Ada, Ghana, on Thursday, where he also observed that most African countries lack top-rate people as members of their economic management team.
Dr. Jonathan also encouraged leaders on the continent to invest in schools for special talents and technology-driven education in order to spur rapid industrialization, economic diversification and technological growth.
He commended Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama for making the right call in his appointments, adding that the Ghanaian leader succeeded in setting up a smart cabinet made up of well-educated people.
He said: “First and foremost I appreciate Mahama because I believe he made the right selection for his cabinet. This is a problem in most African countries because often we select our cabinet based on relationship or on patronage.”
These persons, he further said, must possess leadership skills and qualities because leadership is not just about the president alone but about everyone who is part of the government and working to help the leader realise his vision.
Sharing his lived experience in making appointments, Dr. Jonathan said: “In my time, I think I tried a little. I am not an economist but I spotted people like Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, current director general of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), who was not even in Nigeria when we were voting, to run our finance ministry. I also brought Dr. Akin Adesina, current president of the African development bank (AfDB), who was somewhere in Kenya during the elections, to man my agric ministry because I believe in their capacity to deliver. Some of my cabinet members did not even vote for me but I appointed them because of my belief in what they could do for the country.”
He also urged African leaders to always hit the ground running to be able to make meaningful impact in governance, given the short time in a democratic tenure, especially in Ghana and Nigeria where Presidential tenure is four years or maximum eight years.
He said further: “Today, I will not look at what President Mahama can do for Ghana to succeed because he will lead this country only for the next four years. I will rather focus on what this government should do to prepare Ghana for the next 25 years. To the UNDP, if you are supporting us, you have to look at what African countries should do, what Ghana should do, in the next 25 to 30 years to change the dynamics of growth and development.”
