FASEHUN To BUHARI: Your impunity is dividing Nigeria
FASEHUN To BUHARI: Your impunity is dividing Nigeria
Founder of the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) Dr. Frederick Fasehun, has accused President Muhammadu Buhari of dividing the country and asked that he immediately cancel the recent lopsided appointment by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
Fasehun decried the level of “unbelievable insensitivity” and “impunity” which he said Buhari-led government demonstrated and has maintained in his appointments since coming to power in 2015.
The OPC leader stated this on Tuesday at a press conference in Lagos, adding that separatist agitation as well as call for the restructuring of the country became so loud owing to President Buhari’s impunity.
He warned that the President must stop heating up the polity with his divisive tendencies.
He said, “When he first took power in 2015 and began his initial appointments, President Muhammadu Buhari demonstrated unbelievable insensitivity to Nigeria’s diversity, unity and Constitution by unfolding a list of appointees clearly dominated and monopolised by his Northern kinsmen to the alienation and disadvantage of other regions, especially the South-East.
“For example, of the six security service chiefs Buhari has appointed, the North dominates with four appointees, to the South’s two, with the South-East, in fact, having none. By July 2016, President Buhari had appointed 47 Southerners and 75 Northerners into various non-ministerial public offices; again the South-East brought up the rear with 12 appointees, where Buhari’s North-West had the largest chunk 34 of political office holders.”
On the recent NNPC appointment he said, “Unfortunately, this far-from-nationalistic lopsidedness and Northern domination has been repeated in the recently announced directors for the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). And OPC joins other well-meaning patriots to ask President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately cancel the new NNPC appointments.
“Of the 15 new directors, 10 (67 percent) come from the mostly Hausa-Fulani North, three are Yoruba, two come from the South-South and none from the South-East. President Buhari must urgently review these appointments to reflect Federal Character, failing which the Senate should bar the appointees from resuming in office.
“We understand that secret appointments into Federal parastatals like the NNPC, NPA and CBN and security arms like the DSS and EFCC have followed this trend, heavily skewed against the South in favour of the North.
According to Fasehun, Buhari has contradicted the letter and spirit of the Constitution he swore to uphold, specifically the Federal Character principle in Section 14(3), 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…”
On alleged impunity by Buhari he said, “The President must realise that favouring the North with his lopsided appointments is an act of impunity, and it has sparked the raging agitations for disintegration, ethnic separatism and restructuring. Continuing down this path will further overheat the polity. The agitations for Biafra, for example, began and became heightened with the President’s flagrant disregard for the extant provisions of the constitution and his failure to run an all-inclusive government.”
Among other things, Fasehun listed some appointment in the nation’s security institutions that shows how Buhari encouraged “unhealthy trend of Northern domination and Southern marginalisation.
The listed security appointments to the North as he listed include National Security Adviser; Inspector General of Police; Chief of Army Staff; Chief of Air Staff; Chief of Defence Intelligence; Director General, State Security Services, SSS; Comptroller-General, Nigerian Customs Service; Comptroller-General, Nigerian Immigration Service; and Economic and Financial Crimes Commission chairman.
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