Federal Appointments:‘The South-West Agenda’

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Thursday approved the appoint­ment of Ola Olukoyede as Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for a renew­able term of four years in the first instance, pending Senate confir­mation. The appointment is com­ing nearly four months after he suspended former chairman of the commission, Abdulrasheed Bawa. Though the manner of the appointment has been faulted in some quatres, more noteworthy is that it is yet another example of ‘lopsided’ appointment – a high­point of this government’s ‘lop­sided’ appointments, according to critics. The latest appointment would seem to have corroborated claims by public commentators that the present administration is religiously toeing the nepotistic line of the former government of Muhammadu Buhari which was decidedly ‘fulanised’.

The allegation that President Tinubu is pro-South-West in his appointments began very early in the life of his administration when he made his first sets of appointments.

REGRETS OVER MUSLIM-MUSLIM TICKET

One of Tinubu’s first critics was ironically the Islamic advo­cacy group, Muslim Rights Con­cern (MURIC), which, in Septem­ber, accused him of favouring Christians in the appointments he had made. The group said Pres­ident Tinubu had turned “Mus­lim-Muslim administration into a Christian-majority government.”

In a statement by its Direc­tor-General, Prof. Ishaq Akinto­la, MURIC alleged that Tinubu had ignored Muslims who were also considered competent to hold public offices in his administra­tion while saturating his cabinet with Christians and Yoruba peo­ple.

The group described Tinubu’s appointment as “lopsided and a disappointment to Muslims who thought the Muslim-Muslim tick­et adopted by the ruling party would ensure inclusive govern­ment in the country.”

“We are shocked to our mar­rows that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been appointing Christians and Yorubas mainly to key positions since the incep­tion of this administration at the expense of Muslims,” the group said.

It added: “For instance, five out of eight security chiefs appointed earlier are Christians. Ministeri­al posts have not been different. All five key appointments made by President Tinubu to revive the economy were given to Christians and Yorubas mainly.

“These new appointees in­clude the Minister of Finance, Wale Edun; the newly nominated CBN governor, Dr. Michael Car­doso; Hon. Zacch Adedeji, Acting Chairman, FIRS; the Chairman, Tax Reforms Committee, Mr. Tai­wo Oyedele, and Mr. Tope Fasua, Special Adviser on Economic Af­fairs.

“Many competent Muslims who campaigned and voted for Muslim-Muslim ticket during the presidential election were ignored. It is interesting to note that some of those Muslims are eminently qualified to hold key political offices since there are professors, engineers, medical doctors and holders of doctorate degrees among them.

“To add salt to injury, one of the best Muslim ministerial nom­inees, the man who championed the Muslim-Muslim ticket and mobilised the whole North behind Asiwaju, has been jettisoned.

“Also, Professor Ali Isa Panta­mi, who took the communication and digital economy to enviable heights during the last adminis­tration, was ignored. Where, then, is our Muslim president, taking Nigerian Muslims?

“Our message to President Tinubu is this (and we want the president’s handlers to take this to him) the cacophony of voices of dissatisfied Muslims has reached an unbearable crescendo such that MURIC is now constrained to speak up. People are complaining, particularly Muslims from the North and South West, and they can only be ignored at the risk of foregoing 2027.

“Meanwhile we, in MURIC, accept full responsibility for the dilemma facing Nigerian Mus­lims as their Muslim-Muslim ticket has turned into a ‘Christian majority government’. We admit being in the forefront of the cam­paign for a Yoruba Muslim pres­idency which has become a bone in the throat of Yoruba Muslims in particular and Nigerian Mus­lims in general.

“With heavy hearts, we tender unreserved apology, first, to the former governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, for what we led him to even though he showed no interest at the begin­ning, and to other Nigerian Mus­lims, particularly those who have been accusing us of misleading them,” the statement said.

THE SOUTH-WEST DAY

The group and others who shared similar sentiments not­ed that the appointments made so far made at the time favoured the South-West geopolitical zone where the president comes from. The appointees included the Min­ister of Finance, Wale Edun; the newly nominated Yemi Cardoso, as Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN); Zacch Adede­ji, acting chairman, FIRS; Taiwo Oyedele, chairman, Tax Reforms Committee; Tope Fasua, Special Adviser on Economic Affairs, and Bisoye Coker-Odusote, acting di­rector general of the National Identity Management Commis­sion (NIMC).

The President had earlier named Adeniyi Adewale, a Yoru­ba man, as the Comptroller-Gen­eral of the Nigeria Customs Ser­vice; Kayode Egbetokun as the Inspector General of Police; Fo­lashodun Shonubi, acting gover­nor of the Central Bank of Nige­ria (CBN), following the removal of Godwin Emefiele.

Thirteen out of the 20 appoint­ed first sets of personal aides came from the South-West. In this group of appointments were those of Tunde Rahman (SSA, Media); Abdulaziz Abdulaziz (SSA, Print Media); Ibrahim Ma­sari (SSA, Political); Adekunle Tinubu (Personal Physician); Damilotun Aderemi (SSA, Pri­vate Secretary), and Toyin Subair (SSA, Domestic).

The SSAs included O’tega Ogra (SSA, Digital/New Media); Demo­la Oshodi (SSA, Protocol); Tope Ajayi (SSA, Media & Public Af­fairs). Other SSAs were Yetunde Sekoni, Motunrayo Jinadu, Segun Dada, and Paul Adekanye. Oth­ers were Friday Soton, Shitta-Bey Akande, Nosa Asemota, and Ka­mal Yusuf.

Perhaps, in the effort to have a full grip of security at the Presi­dential Villa, Abuja, the president appointed his kinsman, Adebisi Onasanya, a Colonel, as the Com­mander, Elite Guards Brigade, that provides personal protection for the president. He also appoint­ed Moshood Yusuf, a Lieutenant Colonel, as Commander, 7 Guards Battalion, Asokoro, Abuja.

Others were Auwalu Inuwa, Commander, 177, Guards Battal­ion, Keffi, Nasarawa State, Mo­hammed J. Abdulkarim, Com­mander, 102 Guards Battalion, Suleja, Niger and Olumide A. Akingbesote, as Commander, 176 Guards Battalion, Gwagwalada, Abuja, all, within the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and its environs.

Yet other military officers appointed in the Presidential Villa were Isa Farouk Audu, (kN/14695), a Major, as Command­ing Officer, State House Artillery; Kazeem Sunmonu (N/16183), a Captain as Second-in-Command, State Artillery, while Kamaru Hamzat (N/14656), also a Major, as Commanding Officer, State House Military Intelligence.

TS Adeola (N/12860), a Major, took over as Commanding Offi­cer, State House Armament, A. Aminu (N/18578), a Lieutenant, as Second-in- Command, State House Armament.

On the appointment of minis­ters, South West also got a chunk. This included Minister of Com­munications, Innovation and Dig­ital Economy, Bosun Tijani; Min­ister of State, Environment, Ishak Salako; Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of The Economy, Wale Edun, and Minis­ter of Interior, Bunmi Tunji-Ojo

Others were the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu; Min­ister of State, Health and Social Welfare, Tunji Alausa; Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake; Minister of Tourism, Lola Ade-John; Minister of Ma­rine & Blue Economy, Adegboye­ga Oyetola.

On the other hand, the South- East was allocated five Minis­tries; South-South Seven, North West, nine Ministers, North East, eight and North Central, nine Ministers.

In the appointments of 18 Spe­cial Advisers in the office of the Vice President, the President named Rukaiya El-Rufai as Spe­cial Adviser to the President on NEC & Climate Change; Tope Kolade Fasua as Special Adviser (SAD) to the President on Eco­nomic Matters; Aliyu Modibbo Umar, Special Adviser General Duties; Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, Special Adviser on Political Mat­ters, and Jumoke Oduwole, Spe­cial Adviser to the President on Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) and Investments.

Others included Sadiq Wanka, Special Adviser to the President on Power Infrastructure; Usman Mohammed, Senior Special Assis­tant to the President on Admin­istration & Office Coordination; Stanley Nkwocha, Senior Spe­cial Assistant to the President on Media & Communications; Ishaq Ningi, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Digital Media & Emergency Management; Peju Adebajo, Senior Special Assistant to the President, Investment & Privatisation; Mohammed Bula­ma, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Political/Special Duties; Kingsley Uzoma, Senior Special Assistant to the Presi­dent, Agricbusiness & Productiv­ity Enhancement; Gimba Kakan­da, Senior Special Assistant to the President, Research & Analytics, and Temitola Adekunle-John­son, Senior Special Assistant to the President, Job Creation & MSMEs.

Also lucky were Nasir Yamma­ma, Senior Special Assistant to the President, Innovation; Zainab Yunusa, Senior Special Assistant to the President on NEC; Mariam Temitope, Senior Special Assis­tant to the President, Regional Development Programmes, and Bashir Maidugu, Deputy State House Counsel (Senior Special Assistant to the President).

He appointed 32-year-old Khalil Halilu as Executive Vice Chair­man and Chief Executive Officer of the National Agency for Sci­ence and Engineering Infrastruc­ture (NASENI).

BUHARI’S FOOTPRINTS

A lawyer, Godwin Ehimikuae, in his assessment, said the presi­dent had fallen into the same nep­otistic mistake of the immediate past president by surrounding himself with people from his re­gion.

“Healing a deeply divided na­tion like Nigeria requires that he bring as many people from the different parts of the country as possible into his administra­tion. Unless he does that, it will be difficult to achieve the kind of national cohesion that he wants to build. I expect that his own administration will be different because of the recent experience this country has passed through,” he said.

To address the kind of fears emanating from appointments, Section 14(3) of the 1999 Consti­tution provides for the Federal Character Principle.

According to the section, “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 to promote national unity and also to command national loyalty, thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few states or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in that government or any of its agencies.”

Also, Section 147 [3] of the Ni­gerian Constitution, mandates the federal government to ensure that appointments of Ministers reflect the number of states of the federation and the FCT, to satisfy the federal character of Nigeria in appointments to public offices.

Not long ago, in its reaction to the manner of appointments, the Human Rights Writers As­sociation (HURIWA), said with President Tinubu’s approval of the nomination of Olayemi Car­doso to serve as the substantive Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), some 48 hours after appointing Zachaeus Adede­ji as the acting chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), the president appeared to be pushing an unseemly pro-eth­nic agenda.

In a statement by its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwu­biko, the group said: “That the disastrous, previous adminis­tration of General Muhammadu Buhari, rtd, toed a visionless, di­visive path, in the overwhelming tribalistic appointments it made, should never excuse this course that fundamentally degrades the legitimate dream of a new, progressive, inclusive Nigerian state.”

The Presidential spokesperson of Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Dem­ocratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 election, Daniel Bwala, criticised Tinubu for lack of fairness in his appointments. Bwala stated that the appointments had not been characterized by fairness.

He said: “President Bola Tinu­bu’s appointment is nepotistic and now has earned the status of nepotism pro max 15. I’m telling you that I don’t have anything against him. If President Tinu­bu scores a point, I will be the first, whether in PDP or in APC, to say President Tinubu has done it right.

“We earn the right to point out things that the President and his administration are doing which are not uniting Nigeria, which are not pushing us towards the path of progress. I earn the right to speak truth to power because President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is somebody that I, Bwala Daniel, respect with the greatest respect.”

As though to lend credence to the accusations by critics of the government, President Tinubu, on Thursday, approved the ap­pointment of another South-West­erner, Ola Olukoyede, as Execu­tive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commis­sion (EFCC) for a renewable term of four years in the first instance, pending Senate confirmation. This came nearly four months after he suspended the erstwhile anti-graft agency chief, Abdulra­sheed Bawa.

“Mr. Olukayode’s appointment follows the resignation of the suspended Executive Chairman of the EFCC, Mr. Abdulrasheed Bawa,” a statement signed by the President’s Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, stated.

Olukoyede is a lawyer with over 22 years of experience as a regulatory compliance consultant and specialist in fraud manage­ment and corporate intelligence. He has extensive experience in the operations of the EFCC, hav­ing previously served as Chief of Staff to the Executive Chairman (2016-2018) and Secretary to the Commission (2018-2023). As such, he fulfills the statutory require­ment for appointment as Chair­man of the EFCC.

President Tinubu also ap­proved the appointment of Mr. Muhammad Hammajoda as Secretary of the EFCC for a re­newable term of five years in the first instance, pending Sen­ate confirmation. Hammajoda is a public administrator with extensive experience in public finance management who holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from the University of Maiduguri and a Master’s in Business Administration from the same university.

QUALIFICATION CONTROVERSY

But controversy has trailed the appointment of Olukoyede. Dan­iel Bwala, Abuja based lawyer and member of the Peoples Demo­cratic Party, while reacting to the appointment on Thursday, on his X wall, described it as “unlawful and illegal”, adding that “It runs afoul of the provisions of Section 2 of the EFCC Act”.

Bwala said the Act provides that the person to be appointed as EFCC Chairman must, amongst other things, have been “a serving or retired member of any secu­rity or law enforcement agency, have 15 years cognate experience of law enforcement, and must not be below the rank of assistant commissioner of police

Bwala noted that Olukoyede is a private legal practitioner and has never worked or belong to any security or law enforcement agency as a member.

He added that Olukoyede also does not have 15 years cognate experience as a law enforcement officer, pointing out that the pri­vate legal practice years cannot be equated with the rank in law enforcement.

According to him, “Attending seminal courses as a private le­gal practitioner can equate to 15 years cognate experience contem­plated by section 2 of the Act. He only has a stink as Chief of Staff of Magu, the former acting EFCC Chairman and later became a Secretary of the Commission, all of which lasted for less than 6 years.”

Ngelale, while reacting to Bwala’s position, insisted that Ola Olukoyede remains the new EFCC Chairman, following Pres­ident Bola Tinubu approval of his appointment in line with Section 2(3) of the Economic and Finan­cial Crimes Commission (Estab­lishment) Act, 2004.

According to him, “Olukoyede was the Chief of Staff to the Ex­ecutive Chairman of the EFCC (2016-2018) and Secretary to the Commission(2018-2020). He was a member of a law enforcement organisation as Secretary, in this case the EFCC, as stipulated in the EFCC Act, and as such sat­isfied every legal detail to be ap­pointed as Chairman.”

Ngelale added: “Section 2(1) (p) of the EFCC Act plainly, or­dinarily, and unambiguously established the Secretary to the Commission (i.e., EFCC) as its member and head of its admin­istration.”

He also cited the Supreme Court’s case, determined in the case of Ejuetami v. Olaiya & Anor (2001) LPELR-1072 (SC) at Pg.23- 24, which states that: “The words used are to be given their ‘ordi­nary and natural sense’. There­fore the clear, explicit and unam­biguous words used in sections 2(1)(a)(i)-(iii), (p), 2(2), 3(1)-(3) and 8(5) of the EFCC Act must be given their ordinary and natural sense in line with the guidelines set by the Supreme Court in its long line of undisturbed judicial precedents.”

He continued: “This implies that such cognate experience is presumed to be that of the work or functions of the EFCC acquired anywhere since the EFCC Act did not state where it must be ac­quired. It is also unambiguous by the provisions of subparagraph (iii) that once a person possessed fifteen (15) years of such cognate (i.e., similar or alike) experience, then he has satisfied the provi­sions of sub-paragraph (iii) of section 2(1)(a) of the EFCC Act.

“It is clear from the unam­biguous provisions of the EFCC Establishment Act, 2004, that any member of the Commission whether serving or retired who has 15 years’ cognate experience in their chosen career are eligible to be appointed as the Chairman of the Commission.

“Prior to this time, the conven­tion and precedence is that to be qualified for appointment as the Executive Chairman of the Com­mission, the nominee must be a Police Officer or someone with law enforcement background, particu­larly in the area of investigation. This has not only exposed the Com­mission to all manner of vices but has brewed internal wrangling, discontent, and hatred among the Commission’s staff members.”

Despite Ngelale’s defence of the government’s action, a widely held opinion appears to be that all hin­derances had been suppressed to pave way for Olukoyede’s appoint­ment in furtherance of the ongoing ‘Yorubanisation’ of political ap­pointments by President Tinubu.

As it was in the previous eight years, there is likely no outcry that might change the insistence of the present leadership to em­power the South-West with the choicest federal appointments for as long as it calls the shot. (Daily Independent)