President Bola Tinubu has approved the implementation of the Stephen Oronsaye report, which recommended scrapping and merging Federal Government agencies.
The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, stated this while briefing State House correspondents after the Federal Executive Council meeting in Abuja on Monday, February 26.
One of the President’s media aides, Bayo Onanuga, also said in a post on X, shortly after the meeting that the directive aimed at a “leaner government.”
The directive came barely seven months after the President formed the biggest-ever cabinet in the country with 48 ministers and dozens of aides who are remunerated with the country’s lean resources.
The ICIR reports that fears had grown among workers because of possible job losses given the duplication of responsibilities by some Federal Government agencies since the Oronsaye team presented the report.
For instance, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences (ICPC) does almost the same jobs as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). The two institutions have hundreds of workers.
The report recommended their merger.
Similarly, the report recommended that the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA), Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), and the Voice of Nigeria (VON) should be merged. These are in addition to several other agencies of the Federal Government that will be scrapped or merged.
If implemented, the Federal Government’s 263 statutory agencies as of 2012 could be reduced to 161, making 102 heads of those agencies lose their jobs.
The report, submitted to the Federal Government in 2012, caught the attention of the three presidents that have led the nation between 2012 and now. They are former presidents Goodluck Jonathan and Mohammadu Buhari, and the incumbent Tinubu.
Jonathan and Buhari had at different times considered its implementation but failed.
The former set up the committee in 2012 and named it “The Presidential Committee on the Rationalisation and Restructuring of Federal Government Parastatals, Commissions and Agencies”, with former Head of Service of the Federation, Steve Oronsaye heading it.
The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, while speaking to the State House correspondents said the decision by Tinubu to merge the MDAs was in the interest of Nigerians.
“So in a very bold move today, this administration, under the leadership of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, consistent again with his courage to take very far-reaching decisions in the interest of Nigeria, has taken a decision to implement the so-called Oronsaye Report.
“Now, what that means is that a number of agencies, commissions, and some departments have actually been scrapped. Some have been modified, and marked while others have been subsumed. Others, of course, have also been moved from some ministries to others where the government feels they will operate better,” Idris said.
Similarly, Onanuga noted that the President and the Federal Executive Council had decided to implement the report.
“Twelve years after the Steve Oronsaye panel submitted its report on restructuring and rationalising Federal Government parastatals and agencies and a white paper issued two years after, President Tinubu and the Federal Executive Council today decided to implement the report.
“Many agencies will be scrapped and many others will be merged, to pave the way to a leaner government,” he said.
The implementation involves merging, subsuming and scrapping agencies with similar functions.
According to Onanuga, an eight-man committee has a 12-week deadline to ensure that the necessary legislative amendments and administrative restructuring needed to implement the reforms are effected in an efficient manner.
The committee members include the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Head of the Civil Service, Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Minister of Budget and Planning, Director-General Bureau of Public Service Reform, Special Adviser to the President on Policy Coordination, and Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly.
