BUHARI APPOINTS LEADERS, LEAVES APC MEMBERS EMBARASSED

Finally, the Grand Commander of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari has made his appointments.

It is  worthy of note that the APC members are not happy. This is because it seems, the appointments were in favor of Northerners.

“The President does not consult before making most of these appointments and I can tell you that Nigerians are going to term the party and the President as a northern party and the President of Northern Nigeria,” a leader of the party said on Tuesday. Below are a list of his appointments;

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                  President Buhari, on Thursday approved the appointment of Babachir David Lawal from Adamawa State as the Secretary to the Government of the Federation.

He also named Mr. Abba Kyari from Borno state as his Chief of Staff.

Other appointments approved by the President, according to the statement, are those of Col. Hameed Ibrahim Ali (retd.) as the new Comptroller-General, Nigerian Customs Service; Mr. Kure Martin Abeshi, Comptroller-General, Nigerian Immigration Service; Senator Ita Enang, Senior Special Assistant on National Assembly Matters (Senate); and Suleiman Kawu as SSA on National Assembly Matters (House of Representatives).

Both Ali and Kawu are from Kano State and Abeshi is from Nasarawa. Enang from Akwa Ibom State is the only one from the south geo-political zone.

Adesina said all the appointments would take immediate effect.

 It is really pitiable that while some of our brothers from the South rallied around him, having risked the tag, 'betrayers', the President didn't have them in mind as of now.

The President, as it appears, is already giving the party a bad name among Nigerians. it is surprising though, that his first appointments were mostly Northerners and he has done it again.

Before the latest appointments, the President had also named only one southerner among the initial nine appointments he made.

The northerners in the first appointments are the Director-General of the State Services, Lawal Daura; Acting Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Mrs. Amina Zakari; the Director, Department of Petroleum Resources, Mr. Mordecai Danteni Baba Ladan; and the Accountant-General of the Federation, Alhaji Ahmed Idris.

Also in the first appointments are the President’s Chief Security Officer, Abdulrahman Mani; State Chief of Protocol, Mallam Abdullahi Kazaure; Aide- De-Camp, Lt. Col. Muhammed Abubakar; and the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu.

Only the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, hailed from Osun Staten in the South-West.

But I wonder if these appointments can be reviewed. It is note worthy that the President is required by Constitution to appoint ministers from all 36 states of the federation.
 Here are brief details of some of the new appointments...

The new SGF graduated from the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, in 1979 with a Bachelor of Engineering degree and worked with the Delta Steel Company, Aladja, Nigerian External Telecommunications Limited and Data Sciences Limited before establishing his own ICT and Telecommunications consulting firm in 1990.

Kyari, the new Chief of Staff to the President, holds Bachelors and Masters Degrees from the University of Cambridge and the University of Warwick in Law and Sociology.

The new Comptroller-General of Customs, holds Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Criminology. He was military administrator of Kaduna State from 1996 to 1998.