One year since President Bola Tinubu set up a committee to implement the Stephen Orosanye Report, there is still no public update on its progress, despite the committee’s 12-week deadline.

According to the president’s directive shared in February 2024 by Bayo Onanuga, his special adviser on information and strategy, the committee would implement the scrapping and merging of several agencies to cut down cost of governance. One year later, Nigerians have heard nothing about the report’s execution.

This committee was inaugurated on March 7, 2024 and it is expected to have delivered its report by May 30, 2024.

“Twelve years after the Steve Oronsaye panel submitted its report on restructuring and rationalising federal government parastatals and agencies and a white paper issued two years after, President Tinubu and the Federal Executive Council today decided to implement the report,” Onanuga shared in February 2024.

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“Many agencies will be scrapped and many others will be merged, to pave way to a leaner government.”

To aid the smooth implementation of this report, the president appointed an eight-man committee led by George Akume, the Secretary to the Government the Federation. Attorney General of the Federation Lateef Fagbemi and Hadiza Bala, Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, were members.

Other committee members were Ibrahim Arabi, Director-General Bureau of Public Service Reform, Abubakar Gumel, Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Kunle Olarewaju, Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly (House of Representatives), Hakeem Okunola, Principal Secretary to the President, and Richard Pheelangwah, Permanent Secretary, Cabinet Affairs Office.

The committee was expected to oversee the scrapping of two agencies the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate and the National Senior Secondary Education Commission (NSSEC). Also, 15 agencies were to be merged, nine incorporated into others, and four relocated.

READ MORE: Oronsaye Report: Inside 12-Year-Old White Paper

However, despite these directives, FIJ found that some of these agencies, like the National Emergency Agency (NEMA) and the National Commission Refugee, Migration and Internally Displaced Persons (NCFRMI), still operated independently when they should have been merged.

The National Agency for the Control of Aids (NACA) to be merged under the under the Centre for Disease Control in Federal Ministry of Health, also appears to still work independently.

Also, the Directorate of Technical Cooperation in Africa (DTCA), which was to be merged with the Directorate of Technical Aid (DTAC) to function as a department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, still appears to be operating independently.

Furthermore, the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) appears yet to be merged with the National Centre for Agriculture Mechanisation (NCAM) and the Project Development Institute (PRODA).

For agencies to be integrated, the Public Complaints Commission (PCC) is to be subsumed under the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).

A staff of PCC told FIJ on Saturday that there has been no implementation or plan of implementation.

“They did not implement anything; it has just been all talks. We are still operating independently,” the PCC staff told FIJ.

FIJ found that dozens of other agencies affected by this report still appear to operate independently.