Lopsided Appointments and The Presidential Fact!

There seems to be a huge public outcry with the report of BUSINESS DAY Newspaper last week where it was said that a larger chunk of President Muhammadu Buhari’s appointees are from the North.

In the report, it was established that about 81 out of 100 appointees of the President are all Northerners with the South getting just 19.

As pointed out in several instances, the situation is not in accord with the principle of Federal Character as emphasized in Section 13, Subsection (3) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria which states that “the composition of the government of the federation or any of its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such a manner as to reflect the federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity, and also command national loyalty”.

With several criticisms and tongue-lashing everyday, the issue was taken to another dimension with the Presidency reeling out to Nigerians the real situation.

Perhaps, the report or what could be described as the Presidential Fact has seemed to dent any iota of disagreement, or vilification in placing Federal Character in his method of placing people in government positions.

As argued by Yinka Odumakin, who is the spokesperson of Afenifere, a pan Yoruba Organization, “If Buhari wants to contest the 2019 presidential election, he has the right to contest and Nigerians have the right to make their feelings known. If the president refuses to amend his pattern of appointment, then Nigerians have the right to look elsewhere for a president. Nigerians are not idiots. That is why we still insist that restructuring Nigeria must take place before 2019. The National Assembly may not be listening to the issue of restructuring now but they will when the demand gets tough,” the President must make the right choices in accordance with the law, dictates of the constitution and even satisfy the ethno-dimensional interests of the country.

And Yes, we have the statistics. A look at the appointments list counters BUSINESSDAY’s report with facts. One, it cancels its assertion that 81 out of the appointees are from the North, and the South is not getting its own fair share of the national cake. Only 77 are from the North while 79 are from the South.

The other fact is that the North West where the President comes from got 30 with the South West of the Vice President having the larger share of 40. So, we can’t say the appointments are not lopsided. Rather, the appointments are based on professionalism, competence, antecedents and so on.

And for the Media to come up with reports of bias to the tide of Presidential appointments is very wrong. As the media tries to gate keep the government, it must present its information with facts as enumerated below and push government to doing the needful always.