It did not come as a surprise last week the announcement to the effect that the Federal Government was going to de-merge the ministries and parastatals the Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration had merged in its twilight. When the mergers were announced by that administration and then implemented by the new government of President Umaru Yar’Adua, the question was when, not whether, the action would be reversed. The reversal is much in the line with the re-thinking of many policies of the previous administration that were hurriedly put together and implemented few weeks, or even days, to the end of its life.

The reason given by the government for the planned reversal is that some of the merged ministries are unwieldy and therefore difficult for the ministers to focus and manage. The Ministry of Energy, which now hosts the previous ministries of power and steel, and petroleum; and Ministry of Communications, which is a merger of the previous ministries of information and communications, are but a few examples of the Obasanjo exercise which reduced the number of ministries from over thirty to a more manageable 18.

The argument for establishing a ministry to cater for specific areas of need is seductively attractive at first glance. Take energy, for instance.

The petroleum sector is unwieldy.A whole melange of activities in the oil and gas sectors- upstream and downstream, labour and joint venture operations, which are largely undeveloped and chaotic - would task a cabinet level minister. These are unlikely to receive appropriate attention if they are put under a department under the Ministry of Energy, and managed by a minister of state.

The argument is even stronger for the power sector. Electricity generation and supply is in shambles. The power ministry, charged with developing the sector, seems lost and incapable of moving forward. Subsuming the activities of the power sector under the Ministry of Energy makes a bad situation worse.

This however does not call for a bigger government, but a smaller government with more innovative ways of deploying resources of the country for the benefit of its people. The point bears restating. Nigeria needs smaller,more effective government, not an almighty federal government that wants to control everything under the sun.

Many of the ministries in the present government are not necessary or critical to the developmental needs of the country. Nigeria for instance does not require a ministry of communications. Since the liberalisation of the communications sector, the Nigerian Communications Commission, the industry regulator, has been able to grow the sector in only a few years much more than the Ministry of Communications did for decades when it managed the sector. If the power sector is privatised as it should, and the private sector operators are given the free hand to develop the sector as happened in telecoms, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, the industry regulator, will be best suited for developing the sector, protecting consumers and creating a level playing field for operators. The same is true for sports, transport, works, housing, and many others.

What the government needs to do is determine its economic grundnorm. Does President Yar’Adua want a state – controlled economy, where the government determines what and where goods and services are produced, and at what price they are sold, or an economy driven by the private sector, where the government is only a regulator? Until the government outlines its economic policy, this latest announcement would be assumed to be in line with the trend of reversing every policy of its predecessor without necessarily putting down a superior alternative.

The danger of expanding an already bloated government is that more resources are going into overhead costs, with little left for real development. Even the little left is wasted by corruption, which is exacerbated by a bloated government.

A consequence of the proliferation of government departments with the attendant wastage of resources is the replication of these departments at the National Assembly as standing committees. The situation is laughable to the extend that each senator is chairman of at least one committee and the same thing holds, to a lesser extent, in the House of Representatives. Tens of billions of naira are required annually to maintain these committees but to what purpose? Many of them are noted for engaging in grandstanding and harassing government departments and agencies. This waste is not limited to the Federal Government. There are state governments that do not record as much as N40million monthly in internally generated revenue yet have as many as 20 commissioners each on their payroll!

If the government is looking for inspiration, it should look at the presidential system of the United States, since that is what the Nigerian system is modelled after. The U.S. has about 300million people, the largest economy in the world, and only 13 cabinet level members. Nigeria, with about 150 million people, one of the smallest and poorest economies in the world, has over 40 ministers.

President Yar’Adua may feel hamstrung by the silly constitutional provision which stipulates that every state must have a ministerial representation in the federal cabinet, ensuring that the federal character principle is upheld. What Nigerians require is an upliftment in living standards. A government which delivers on this need not bother too much with the inevitable agitations of political jobbers who think they are entitled to be wards of the state using the fig -leaf of the federal character principle.