enthusiasts to appoint key officers of the administration was a fallout of the endless
squabbling and the fait accompli that was forced on him by political opponents of his
favourite for the post, former Governor Tunde Fashola.
The disappointments by political stakeholders from the south nonetheless, the
appointment of northern minorities and Christians into key positions by the Buhari
administration is meanwhile receiving mixed welcome from the Northern minorities.
Buhari had on Thursday sidestepped the favourite nominees including Fashola and
former Governor Ogbonnonya Onu to appoint Engr. David Lawal, the national vice-
chairman, Northeast, of the All Progressives Congress, APC as the Secretary to the
Government of the Federation, SGF.
Also appointed was the former newspaper editor and banker, Alhaji Abba Kyari as chief
of staff while the taciturn disciplinarian and erstwhile chief of staff to Buhari, Col.
Hammed Ali (retd.) was appointed as the Comptroller General of the Nigerian Customs
Service.
Fashola had been widely touted for the position largely on account of his organisational
acumen and strides in Lagos as governor. However, local political opponents of the
former governor, especially within the All Progressives Congress, APC were said to have
been largely uncomfortable with his possible emergence as chief of staff, a position
they believed would have given him the impetus to dominate the Southwest APC
political leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Though Tinubu has recently denied his personal involvement in the campaign against
Fashola that was mounted through publication of allegedly inflated contract awards by
his administration, his close associates were, however, known to have deployed other
political schemes to knock Fashola out of contention for either the position of SGF or
Chief of Staff.
The ultimate weapon that was used in neutralising Fashola, Saturday Vanguard learnt,
was the nomination of a former commissioner in the Fashola administration as the
Deputy Chief of Staff to the president but delegated to the office of the vice-president.
Mr. Ade Ipaye, SAN who worked as attorney general and commissioner for justice in
the second term of the Fashola administration, it was gathered has been pencilled
down as the deputy chief of staff to the president with responsibilities of working under
the vice-president, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, SAN.
The deployment of Mr. Ipaye, it was gathered, became the political masterstroke that
was used in knocking Fashola out of reckoning in the stiff race for Chief of Staff.
Sources privy to the development disclosed that those against Fashola took advantage
of the fact that Buhari is bent on operating a single presidency with only one chief of
staff who would oversee the president’s affairs and a deputy chief of staff who would
oversee the duties of the vice-president. Given that Ipaye was projected to work with
Osinbajo, it became untenable to have another Lagosian in the person of Fashola work
as chief of staff.
“You cannot have two of them from Lagos working as chief of staff and deputy chief of
staff in the same government,” a source privy to the development disclosed.
Ipaye’s choice as deputy chief of staff was also logical given that before his
appointment into the Fashola cabinet he had worked as special assistant to Osinbajo
when the latter was commissioner for justice and attorney general in Lagos State in the
Tinubu administration.
Meanwhile, despite mutterings in some sections of the country about perceived
geopolitical lopsidedness in the appointments so far made by the president, the
appointment of Mr. Lawal as SGF was at the weekend being welcomed as another elixir
by Buhari to soothe the long cries of marginalisation by northern minorities.
Mr. Lawal from Adamawa State, a pastor and missionary, became the first Christian
from the North to get the high profile position of SGF. His appointment sources said
flowed from the comfort and confidence the president has in him arising from his long
association with the president.
Lawal was a leading supporter of Buhari ahead of the presidential primaries and helped
to ensure that Buhari defeated Atiku Abubakar in the APC presidential primaries in
Adamawa State and the Northeast.
Besides his integrity and political capacity that recommended him for the office, Mr.
Lawal’s emergence as SGF was at the weekend also receiving critical acclaim by
northern minorities on account of the long history of marginalisation of Northern
Christians into sensitive positions in the recent past.
However, one northern leader was not impressed yesterday saying that it was a move
to lure the disenchanted northern minorities back to the agenda of one north.
“This is just a move to woo the northern minorities back to the Hausa Fulani agenda
before they will again humiliate us after they have achieved their purpose,” the northern
leader a former member of the National Assembly and presidential aide told Saturday
Vanguard yesterday.
Some have alleged that it was part of the scheme to reintegrate the northern minorities
into the One North philosophy that the Northwest through Governor Aminu Tambuwal
gave rabid support for the emergence of Yakubu Dogara as speaker of the House of
Representatives.
Apparently alluding to a deliberate effort to rebuild the relationship between the northern
minorities and the Hausa Fulani when he received a delegation of Dogara’s Sayawa
Community of Bogoro and Tafawa Balewa Local Government Areas of Bauchi State who
paid him a thank you visit in appreciation of his role in the installation of Dogara as
speaker, Tambuwal had said:
“The relationship between people of Sokoto and Bauchi States was amplified in the First
Republic when the first Prime Minister of Nigeria, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa worked in
harmony with the leader of his party and then Premier of Northern Nigeria, Sir Ahamdu
Bello.”
(Vanguard)
No comments:
Post a Comment