President Bola Tinubu, yesterday, at the opening of a three-day cabinet retreat for ministers, presidential aides, permanent secretaries and top government functionaries said he would sign a performance bond with them and the permanent secretaries, warning that any underperforming member would be sacked.
While declaring the retreat which theme was: “Delivering on the Renewed Hope Agenda” open, he announced the setting up of a Results Delivery Unit headed by former managing director of Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA), Hadiza Bala-Usman, to coordinate and review performance of the cabinet members. He reminded the ministers of their responsibility to serve the people who entrusted their mandate on him.
He restated the commitment of his administration to take 50 million Nigerians out of poverty, saying, “poverty is not a shameful thing, it is only unacceptable. And we have to banish it because it is unacceptable.”
He also encouraged the ministers to focus on their ministries’ progress and come up with bold endeavours, stressing that his administration was determined to turn the nation’s population into an asset.
“That is why we established Results Delivery Units. At the end of this retreat you are going to sign a Bond of Understanding between the ministers, the permanent secretaries and myself. If you are performing, there is nothing to fear. If you missed the objective, we review, if no performance you leave us. No one is an island and the buck stops on my desk.
“I assure you will have a free hand. You must be intellectually inquisitive to ask how? Why? When? and why it must be immediate?
“I have taken a young lady, very dynamic Hadiza Usman to head that delivery units. If you have any complain about her, see me. If you are ready to work with her, stay there. Delivery yes! We must achieve it for the sake of the millions of the people.”
He further said the country was blessed with great talents around the world, adding that Nigeria was the biggest intellectually sound country in Africa. “Yes, we have challenges in Sahel, we have challenges of climate change. South and North of Nigeria is battered, we’ve all seen such. You have desert encroachment in the north but we are still blessed with arable lands. We can do it, we can build our country.
It is not about the theoreticians, it is about practical determinations and focus evaluation. Yes, it is our country, we have no other one.
“Let’s be proud that we are Nigerians, that we can do it, you can show leadership. We can fight to make democracy a lasting reference for the rest of Africa.”
