Amidst widespread praise for President Bola Tinubu’s decision to fully implement the 12-year-old Steve Oronsanye-led committee’s report, human rights lawyer Femi Falana has expressed dissent, labeling the report as outdated and asserting that it won’t effectively reduce the cost of governance.
The Federal Executive Council (FEC), chaired by President Tinubu, approved the full implementation of the Oronsanye report on Monday.
According to Hadiza Bala Usman, the Special Adviser to the President on Policy Coordination, this move aims to reduce governance costs and enhance efficiency.
In his response to the decision, Falana argued in a statement on Tuesday that the report does not accurately reflect the current state of the public service and therefore won’t significantly reduce governance expenses.
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He pointed out that the implementation of some recommendations would require considerable time, including constitutional amendments or repeals of statutes for merging certain bodies.
The Oronsanye Panel’s 800-page report recommended reducing statutory agencies from 263 to 161, scrapping 38 agencies, merging 52, and reverting 14 to departments in various ministries.
However, Falana highlighted that since the report’s release, successive administrations have created more ministries, departments, and agencies, rendering the report outdated.
Falana cautioned against exacerbating the insecurity crisis through massive worker retrenchment and instead suggested merging the two houses of the National Assembly and significantly reducing the number of ministers, special advisers, senior special assistants, and special assistants.
