He called on the president to clarify where "innovation" as a portfolio would be based and to further make public articulation of social welfare which has been moved to the health ministry.
Laolu Akande, a spokesperson to the immediate past Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has asked President Bola Tinubu to clarify which of his newly appointed ministers is in charge of “Innovation” and “Social Welfare.”
Akande, who asked the question on Friday while featuring on Channels Television, said the newly appointed ministers had the capacity to deliver, but raised concerns on the need to avoid duplication of roles in ministries.
He called on the president to clarify where "innovation" as a portfolio would be based and to further make public articulation of social welfare which has been moved to the health ministry.
The former presidential aide said that the President has to clarify the area of who takes charge of the "innovation" portfolio which had been duplicated between two ministries of Science and Technology and that of Communication and Digital Economy.
Akande said that "An important thing we may have to look at is, if you look at the list of the ministries, there are two important questions the Federal Government has to answer, I think the President has to answer this: number one, where is innovation? We have the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation and we also have the Minister of Communication, Innovation and Digital Economy, which has to be sorted out.
"Are we going to have a situation where you have innovation here and you have innovation there? Probably this has been sorted out by the two ministers because reason, why this is important is because in the previous administration even when you didn’t have innovation under the Science and Technology Ministry, the people in the Science and Technology just assumed that the innovation was under their purview and the people in Communication and Digital Economy also made such assumption.
"So you find out that there were meetings where both of them were contending tough battles so I think it is important for the president to clarify where is innovation?"
"Secondly, people have even noticed that the President now has two coordinating ministers: (Minister of Finance) and Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Social Welfare. So what is social welfare? Is social welfare what we used to have under Social Development which was in humanitarian affairs but no longer there?
"So, that has been changed from Humanitarian Affairs, Social Welfare and Disaster Management to Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, but social welfare is now taken to health. Now, is social welfare the same thing as social development?
"I understand what the president is trying to do by bringing social welfare in line with health is, while he is trying to advance the microeconomic issue in the economy maybe 4-5% GDP figure in a positive trajectory, he also wants to keep an eye how that impacts the people in real-time, as why he brought the idea of social welfare which is a very commendable thing but it is important for us to clarify is that socio-welfare the same thing as social development?"
On the likelihood of conflicts of interest and possible tension among ministers in the course of carrying out their duties, especially the minister of finance and coordinating minister of the economy, a former commissioner, who has to supervise other ministries with former governors as ministers, he said, "What we must understand is that the Federal Executive Council is the President’s cult; it is what the president wants in terms of the setting and arrangement that would prevail."
Speaking further, Akande said, "These ministers are appointed at the pleasure and they serve the pleasure of the president. He can hire and fire at any time, that is the reason you can see he made some changes, which are completely within his purview by law. He is the one that sets the KPIs, he is the one decides by law what should be done."