With President Bola Tinubu’s second anniversary in office just days away, tension is building within the federal cabinet as the Presidency prepares to receive a new round of ministerial scorecards.
The Central Delivery and Coordination Unit (CDCU), led by Hadiza Bala-Usman, is in the final stage of verifying the performance of all federal ministries for the first quarter of 2025. These assessments are being scored based on the targets each minister committed to at the October 2023 cabinet retreat, where the president strongly echoed; “If you are performing, nothing to fear. If you miss the objective, we’ll review it. If no performance, you leave us.”
This upcoming report — expected to land on the President’s desk any moment now — will guide private performance reviews with each minister and likely inform the next cabinet reshuffle.
A presidential aide confirmed that ministries had uploaded evidence of their activities to a secured portal in April, and the CDCU has been scrutinizing the documents ever since.
“Most ministers are getting average scores. Only a few stood out,” said a top official familiar with the process. “The Minister of Works, for instance, performed relatively well. But some others fell short in key areas.”
Although the President is not expected to take immediate public action, underperforming ministers have reportedly been put on alert.
The CDCU — modeled after similar performance tracking agencies in the UK and Rwanda — was created by Tinubu in June 2023 to ensure his administration delivers on its promises. Its past reports were said to have influenced the October 2024 cabinet reshuffle, which saw two ministers removed and several reassigned.
Opposition parties have seized the moment to demand sweeping changes. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) called the Tinubu administration a “monumental failure,” blaming both the ministers and the President for worsening insecurity and economic hardship.
“You can’t give what you don’t have,” said PDP spokesperson Debo Ologunagba. “The government has failed in all areas — health, education, the economy, and security.”
The New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) and Labour Party (LP) also urged Tinubu to remove non-performing ministers, warning that Nigeria cannot continue “at this slow and painful pace.”
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Several civil groups are demanding that the CDCU report be made public. Auwal Rafsanjani of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre said many ministers appear more focused on Tinubu’s possible 2027 re-election than on real governance.
“The public deserves to see who is actually working and who is coasting on political appointments,” he said.
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