Tension grips cabinet members as Tinubu set to be presented with ministerial scorecard

PRESIDENT Bola Thimbu's Central Results Delivery and Coordination Unit (CDCU) is to present him with a ministerial scorecard this week that will highlight the performance of ministers over the last year as he celebrates his second anniversary in office.

In what will be an assessment, the scorecards will focus on the performance of the various ministries for the first quarter of 2025 as the Tinubu administration enters its mid-term. According to one ministerial aide, with the impending assessment, under-performing ministries are already feeling the heat of renewed scrutiny.

Created as an agency under the presidency, the CDCU is responsible for assessing ministers’ performance quarterly. Apparently, each ministry uploaded evidence of projects and policy milestones to a secure CDCU portal last month and since then, a verification team led by the unit’s head, Hadiza Bala-Usman, has been pouring over the submissions and assigning scores.

Asked about the assessment of some prominent cabinet members, one insider described the performance of many ministers as average, noting that only a few of them scored above average. Even though President Tinubu is not expected to take any immediate action on the performance of any minister or ministry, the report is expected to provide him with the most up-to-date information on the performances of his cabinet members.

This information, sources said, will also help the president to engage some of his cabinet members or ministers on areas of improvement when necessary. At the opening of the three-day cabinet retreat for ministers, presidential aides, permanent secretaries and top government functionaries on November 1, 2023, President Tinubu said ministers in his cabinet would only retain their offices based on performance, which would be reviewed quarterly.

Established in June 2023, the CDCU has a mandate to track key performance indicators, publish quarterly dashboards and flag red-line projects for presidential intervention. On October 17, 2023, Ms Bala-Usman announced that her unit would begin transmitting quarterly reports to the president from January 2024, as all ministries had received their budgets for the 2024 fiscal year by then.

Ms Bala-Usman has repeatedly warned that the scorecards are more than academic. At a media briefing in February 2025, she reminded ministers that quarterly assessments will feed directly into presidential decisions, noting that the unit’s last report had already triggered targeted conversations and mid-term adjustments in at least three ministries.