A former presidential spokesperson, Reuben Abati on Friday lampooned the newly appointed Ministers by President Bola Tinubu saying many of them are ignorant people who do not understand what their portfolio is all about.
Abati, an anchor with Arise TV made the remark on ‘The Morning Show’ while reacting to the statement by the Minister of Women’s Affairs, Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye, who advocated for the reduction of school days and the use of schoolchildren as workers to manufacture essentials such as toothpicks, sanitary pads, and cotton buds.
“Let us introduce urban development in the schools. If we can think about using Fridays as a free day for our children to start producing things just like they do in China, even young kids can get involved in production” the Minister had said.
A livid Abati said it is surprising how a Minister will be advocating for Nigerian children to be used as child labourers producing sanitary pads, toothpicks and other things manufacturing companies are struggling to provide.
Abati said “The comparism with China just shows complete ignorance. Those people who have recommended that Uju Ohanenye should probably be renamed Minister of Child Labour Enforcement may be right because she is focused on child labour enforcement”.
“When President appointed these 45 ministers, I made a point on this programme that these people should be given proper instructions, proper training. There should be a ministerial retreat because many of these ministers don’t understand what their portfolio is all about. They have no idea and they don’t have people around them who can explain things to them. This is a consequence of these putting ignorant people together in the room and refusing to draw their attention to the right things”.
“She is minister of women affairs, she is talking about urban development by children . how wrong-headed can that possibly be? And the scandal of it is that she has the confidence to say it in public”.
“ So, these Ministers need a retreat. I know the Tinubu administration is dealing with a lot of things but can they quickly organise a retreat, bring people together who are subject areas expert, who can assist them and make available to them documents on state policies?”.
