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From Fred Itua, Abuja
Principal partner of Friends Chambers and an Abuja based legal luminary, Orji Nwafor – Orizu has condemned in its entirety, what he described as excluding people from the South East geopolitical zone from major appointments in Nigeria by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. He said such appointments don’t reflect true federal system of government.
Nwafor-Orizu spoke with newsmen at the weekend in Abuja.
He said: “The appointments made by Mr President so far doesn’t obviously include the South East and it is a dangerous thing. The presidents that ruled this country very well by putting the federal character into consideration were those who took time to understand that the appointments must be distributed. Good examples were Obasanjo and Shagari. They ensured that each geopolitical zone got position where it should have position.”
According to him, the major positions in Nigeria are President, Vice President (VP), Senate President (SP), Speaker of the House, Secretary (SHR), Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and the National Chairman of the party, adding that Obasanjo and Shagari ensured that each of the zones got one.
Blaming former President Gooldluck Jonathan for kickstarting imbalance in appointments, he said: “Immediately Jonathan came in, Jonathan took his position from the South South (SS) and gave the rest to the North. He didnt give any to the SE and South West (SW). That was the cause of Tinubu from the SW and others teamed up to remove Jonathan. SE was shy and they didn’t understand the politics. They would have joined hands to remove Jonathan, because he called them nobody.”
When Bulhari came, he went on, he made his appointments mainly from the North and people, according to him complained in vain. The lawyer further said they expected Tinubu to address the anomalies, but was dissapointed that when he came, Tinubu made his appointments from the Yoruba alone.
Urging the president to stop from yorubanising the appointments, he said that he has noted with dismay that since Jonathan, Buhari and Tinubu, none of the positions has come to the SE.
Treating the accusation that the south easterners didn’t vote for the All Progressives Congress (APC), the Nnewi in Alhambra – born prince said that the party treated people from the geopolitical zone with disregard, by asking how many people from SE did they put in position during their campaign and election, for such people to have financial power and popularity and say the APC has done this and that?
“That is why I usually laugh, whenever they accuse the SE of not having voted for them. The question is, when they were campaignig and running for election, how many south easterners did they give position, for them to have finamcial power and popularity to come and say that the All Progressives Congress (APC) has done this and that. The APC didn’t give position to anybody from the SE,” he stated.
According to him, Obasanjo lost election in his SW and when he came in, he started assuaging the SW, making them a part of his own, so that when he ran for second time, they voted for him in the SW, even as he added that he didn’t drive them away. Describing such appointments as childish politics, politics of uninformed and that of people without brains, he said to be talking that because you didn’t give them vote, they won’t give you appointment is not the best way to go about politics in a modern democracy.
“There are issues in Nigeria and one of them is to understnad that in a federation, representation is strictly put into consideration and now, they are doing it any how,” he noted.
