It was a remarkable ministry, entailing endless journeys through mountainous terrain, mostly on horseback, to often isolated villages.
In the 1970s it caused endless fights between Whitehall ministries anxious to preserve their fiefdoms and a Scottish Office keen to expand its power.
Permits must be won from several slow-moving ministries, and endless restrictions stand in the way of clearing the bush for farming, especially if the land involved is tribal.
He is a tireless reader, not just of books but of the endless reports he receives from his ministries and deputies and, most of all, from his secret police.
All the same, the information is not hiding in endless monospace text files linked from obscure ministry sub-pages.
In Nigeria, where over $5 billion was reported missing from a minerals ministry on Friday, the latest in a series of seemingly endless government scandals, the church offers an alternative to a life mired in corruption, poverty and hopelessness.
By contrast, Al-Sadisa features a seemingly endless parade of imams, scholars, and other functionaries of the country's Islamic affairs ministry.
