Nearly two weeks after, controversy still trails the latest appointments by President Muhammadu Buhari, writes Assistant Editor (North), CHUKS EHIRIM.
Recent appointments of members of his kitchen cabinet by President Muhammadu Buhari has continued to generate mixed reactions from different persons and groups in the country.
The Presidency had, on Thursday, August 27, announced the appointments of Babachir Lawal as Secretary to Government of the Federation (SGF) and Abba Kyari as his Chief of Staff. Other beneficiaries of the appointments are former Military Administrator of Kaduna State, Col. Hameed Ali (Comptroller-General of Customs), Kure Abeshi (Comptroller-General of Immigration), Senator Ita Enang (Senior Special Adviser on Senate Matters) and Suleman Kawu (Senior Special Adviser on the House of Representatives Matters).
The appointments have pitted the Buhari government with several persons and groups in the country. While some criticised the action as favouring the North, where the president hails from, others picked holes on it from gender perspective.
One group that belongs in the latter category is the Women In Politics Forum (WIPF), an organisation of women in politics, in collaboration with other women support groups based in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.
Reacting to the appointments so far made, the group described Mr. President as being gender-insensitive. In a statement signed by its National President, Ebere Ifendu, WIPF frowned at the “gender-insensitivity of the current federal government in Nigeria in its pattern of political appointments”.
The group recalled that it had on May 18 complained of the deliberate marginalisation of women in the constitution of the President’s Transition Committee. It had then noted that of the 19 members of the committee, only two women, Nike Aboderin and Bola Adesola, were members.
“This is notwithstanding the fact that women command majority status in the country’s population. We found that trend not only repugnant but a gross abuse of the fundamental rights of the women folk in our country, for proper representation,” Ifendu had fumed.
She lamented that between that time and now, nothing has really changed in the way the government relates with the women folk, arguing rather that the government seems bent on its policy of perpetual marginalisation of women.
“How else can we explain a situation where, apart from the nomination of a woman as the Acting Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), President Buhari has not seen any other woman who is fit to make the list of political appointments which he has so far made,” she asked.
The group consequently urged the president to immediately forward the name of Zakari to the Senate for confirmation as INEC Chairman. It also demanded that subsequent appointments must honour the 35 per cent affirmative action and the Nigerian gender policy the president promised during his campaign to work with.
The women group is not the only one to have spoken against the manner of appointments that many consider lopsided. A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) from the South East, who pleaded not to be mentioned, told TheNiche that the party was not consulted by the Presidency before the appointments were made.
“The appointments were strictly those of the President. We were not consulted before they were made. Perhaps if the party was notified, it would have been different,” said the party leader who is a member of the APC National Working Committee (NWC).
He added, however, that the appointments were the prerogative of the president.
“It is his prerogative to appoint whoever he so wishes as members of his kitchen cabinet. So, we have no quarrels with that,” he said.
In apparent bid to douse the tension created by the appointments, Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha, has assured Nigerians, especially the South East, that the region would get its fair share of representation in the Buhari-led government.
Governor Okorocha, who spoke after a meeting with political leaders in the state, explained that, as the Commander-in-Chief, Buhari had exercised what the constitution allowed him to do.
According to the governor, there is no cause for alarm, as it is too early in the day to judge the president’s intentions and reason for his appointments which some persons in the region had questioned, saying it was lopsided.
He said that his recent interactions with the president made him more confident that he meant well for the entire nation, including the South East.
National Chairman of APC, John Odigie-Oyegun, also joined in the damage control by assuring Nigerians that the president will balance the federal appointments across the geo-political regions, saying the appointments made so far are his personal staff.
He urged the aggrieved persons over the recent appointees to keep their cool.
Speaking at the APC national secretariat when he received in audience a delegation from MBO Dynamic Support Group, led by its national coordinator, Usman Ibrahim, Odigie-Oyegun said: “There have been a lot of unfortunate misinformation and uproar against appointments at this stage. We have two sets of appointments that have been taking place. One set is the personal privilege of Mr. President, as far as his personal staff are concerned. The other set has to do with a few important and strategic persons that are going to help him either in the fight against corruption or the fight against insurgency in the North East of our country. But this is not where to play the political balancing game. These are serious and the president has the right to appoint those he has confidence in because these are the areas where he has made promises to Nigerians.”
Buhari’s last appointments had generated mixed reactions, with some persons from the South East saying the region had not got any of the appointments made by the President.