|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Nigerians in their numbers have challenged the Presidency to make available a comprehensive list of all appointments made by President Muhammadu Buhari in the last two-and-a-half years disclosing the state of origin, geopolitical zone and portfolio of each appointee.
Among those who have thrown this challenge to the Presidency are Martin Onovo, presidential candidate of the National Conscience Party (NCP) in the 2015 election, and Oluremi Sonaiya, the only female candidate in the 2015 presidential election who ran on the platform of the KOWA Party.
The challenge is a fallout of a BDSUNDAY investigative report published on October 29, 2017 which found that 81 out of Buhari’s 100 major appointments since May 29, 2015 went to Northerners.
The report, which provided names, portfolios, state of origin and geo-political zones of Buhari’s 100 appointees, attracted fierce criticism from both the President’s aides and supporters who accused our reporter of pandering to the whims of some “enemies” of the government.
Bashir Ahmad, senior special assistant to the President on new media, took to his twitter handle to point out what he felt were omissions and biases in the BDSUNDAY report.
“But the list would have been better if heads of PTAD, ITF, NCMB, SON, NPAD, NIPC, OGFZA, PEF and many more were captured,” Ahmad said.
“Blatant lie, many names mostly from South was (sic) deliberately omitted. FTR, Ogun and Imo have the highest no of heads of agencies under PMB,” he added.
PTAD refers to Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate; ITF stands for Industrial Training Fund; NCMB is Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board; SON stands for Standard Organisation of Nigeria; NPAD refers to National Programme of Action against Desertification; NIPC is Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission; OGFZA stands for Oil and Gas Free Zones Authority, whereas PEF stands for Petroleum Equalisation Fund.
But the presidential aide did not provide relevant information on heads of these agencies, their state of origin and geo-political zones. BDSUNDAY research on the agencies, however, shows that NCDMB is headed by Simbi Kesiye Wabote from Bayelsa State as executive secretary; Umana Okon Umana from Cross River State is managing director of OGFZA; Sharon Ikeazor from Anambra State heads PTAD as executive secretary; Osita Aboloma from Delta State is director-general of SON, and Ahmed Bobboi from Niger State heads PEF as executive secretary. The state of origin of Joseph Ari, director-general of ITF, and that of Yewande Sadiku, chief executive officer of NIPC, could not be confirmed as at the time of filing in this report.
Similarly, the official website of NPAD could not be located as several minutes’ efforts spent on the search yielded no result. But it appears that the agency is headed by one Fameso Thomas, whose state of origin is yet unknown.
A similar challenge was faced while working on the first report. In some instances, our reporter made several calls to get the state of origin of some of the agency heads and was lucky to speak to one of the appointees directly. Even leading traditional and online news sites only have educational and professional backgrounds of most of the appointees. Information on the appointees’ states of origin was not even available on the agencies’ website.
Also in response to the BDSUNDAY publication, a presidential aide claimed that the report erroneously included names of appointees the Buhari administration inherited from the immediate past administration of Goodluck Jonathan, but failed to point out who these names. In the course of researching for the earlier report, BDSUNDAY actually found that just a handful of the appointees had been in their respective positions before May 29, 2015. It was, however, also found that those whose tenures expired under the present administration were reappointed by President Buhari as required by the law, making them effectively his appointments.
The two former presidential candidates, Martin Onovo and Oluremi Sonaiya, have said that beyond just discrediting the BDSUNDAY report, the Presidency should as a matter of urgency produce its own authentic list of all of Buhari’s appointees since he assumed office supplying their names, portfolios and states of origin.
Onovo, who said the BDSUNDAY report was very clear, drew particular attention to the fact that the security establishments are dominated by Northern Muslims.
“The Commander-In-Chief is a Northern Muslim; the Police IG is a Northern Muslim; Chief of Army Staff, Northern Muslim; Minister of Defence, Northern Muslim; Minister of Internal Affairs, Northern Muslim; National Security Adviser, Northern Muslim; DG, Department of State Services, Northern Muslim; Commandant General, Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corp (NSCDC), Northern Muslim; Chief of Staff, Northern Muslim; ADC to President, Northern Muslim; CSO to President, Northern Muslim; Principal Secretary , Northern Muslim; Private Secretary to President, Northern Muslim; Protocol to President, Northern Muslim; Head of Customs, Northern Muslim; chairman of EFCC, Northern Muslim; head of Nigeria Prisons, Northern Muslim; head of Immigration, Northern Muslim,” Onovo said.
“We know what we are talking about. The Permanent Secretaries of most of these institutions are Northern Muslims. Of the 15 positions listed above, it is clear that only the Chief of Defence Staff and the Chief of Naval Staff are Southern Christians. The rest are Northern Muslims. The percentage is 13 to 87. There is none from the South-East. This is a clear violation of the Nigerian Constitution. It is because of this sectional security formation that the Fulani herdsmen are killing and they are not arrested, since the matter of herdsmen is sectional, too. All the armed security agencies, except two, are headed by Northern Muslims. You will find out that Southerners have only 20 percent representation in security services. But the South-East has no representation in Nigeria’s security formation. A zero representation of a whole zone, in violation of the Constitution; that is impunity,” he said.
Since the Presidency has faulted BDSUNDAY’s publication, Onovo said, it should then publish all appointments of the President and if BDSUNDAY is found to be wrong in the facts it presented, the newspaper can write a retrieve and tender apologies.
“That is the right thing to do. It is very true and obvious that the General Buhari-led Federal Government has been making appointments in violation of the Nigerian Constitution with impunity. It is very unfortunate that the National Assembly dominated by members of the ruling party has failed to call Buhari to order. These violations of the Constitution not only promote divisions but also promote lawlessness in the country,” Onovo said.
“There are several cases. The leadership level of the Presidency is clearly dominated by appointees from one section of the country. The DSS recruitments had about 12 percent of recruits from Katsina State alone. The Katsina recruits were even dominated by Daura Emirate recruits. Comparatively, some other Southern states got less than 2 percent. The Defence Ministry and security high command appointments favoured one section of the country while the unlawful and premeditated premature retirement of senior military officers was targeted at another section of the country,” he said.
On her part, Sonaiya told BDSUNDAY in a telephone chat that BusinessDay, as a media organisation, should stand by its publication since the named appointees are yet to come out to deny that they are from the state written against their respective names and the Presidency has yet to present a full list with relevant information of government’s appointments since May 2015 to counter the report.
“What BusinessDay did is a fact-finding thing, unless the government can prove that the data is wrong by presenting the correct data. Except the appointees come out to say, ‘No, you are wrong, I don’t come from this state as you wrote’. If they don’t, it means that what BusinessDay has written is true; and it is a pity,” Sonaiya said.
“Normally, I am more interested in a merit-based system. I do not care so much about where somebody comes from, as long as this is a person of integrity and who was chosen on merit. But unfortunately, that is not what happened here. People are chosen in general based on connection with this or that person and based on what you have fed to this present administration. It seems to be you have to come from the north. People have been complaining about that; so many of the President’s security appointees come from the North,” she said.
Sonaiya believes the President has to be made to address these issues as he can’t just ignore the concerns being expressed by the people he is leading.
“This is a democracy. We must keep bringing this matter up, and requiring from the President an explanation of these issues. We must demand accountability from our leaders. We can’t just allow the matter to disappear like that. Since the Presidency has faulted the publication, let’s ask for real data. Let them publish the names of Buhari’s appointees since he became President, their portfolios and state of origin, so that Nigerians can know who is right,” she said.
NATHANIEL AKHIGBE & MABEL DIMMA
