Former Edo State State Governor Adams Oshiomhole Sunday urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to appoint the best hands as ministers.
Oshiomhole spoke on Channels Television Politics on Sunday.
The Senator said Tinubu must not reward patronage with incompetence while urging Mr President to appoint competent Nigerians.
He said: “Appointing quality people was the heart of our campaigns and we all acknowledged that one of the gifts of President Tinubu based on what he did in Lagos, is his ability to hunt talents.
“He is not known to surround himself with yes-yes men. He surrounds himself with people whose opinions can be different from his. That was a selling point we sold to Nigerians.
“I’ll expect that now that he is dealing with a much bigger entity, Nigeria, he can only look for the very best without sentiment.
“There are ways to compensate people, but that should not be at the expense of the deliverables.
“No one can give to the nation what he or she does not possess.”
Oshiomhole attributed high cost of governance in Nigeria to lack of data and suggested that having credible data could help in cutting the cost of governance.
“I guess the challenge the government is facing is the absence of reliable data.
“For those in the informal sector, from former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s era, billions of naira have been spent on the need to have credible national data, yet that is not available. I think the government needs to look at how to solve that problem.
“There’s nothing wrong with cash transfers, but the challenge is the lack of reliable data.
“The real cost of governance is the wastage even in the bureaucracies. There is no question that there is huge and avoidable waste in the government.
“I will expect that this President will make conscious efforts to as much as possible reduce the cost of governance.”