The Nation Newspaper

Tag: BUHARI

  • Falana to Buhari: Review cases of convicted soldiers

    Falana to Buhari: Review cases of convicted soldiers

    Lagos lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN), has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to review the cases of officers and soldiers convicted by military tribunals in relation to the fight against Boko Haram.

    In a statement issued in Lagos on Friday, Falana said this has become necessary since the immediate past Chief of Defence staff, Air Marshal Alex Badeh, has admitted that the armed forces he led lacked the equipment to prosecute the war on terror.

    The rights activist remarked that it was gratifying that the Buhari administration and the Chief of Army Staff have decided to reinstate 3,032 dismissed soldiers.
    “However, we urge the Federal Government to extend the commendable gesture to several officers and soldiers who are currently standing trial.

    “The trial should be terminated while the courts-martial are dissolved forthwith. In the same vein, the cases of those who have been convicted ought to be reviewed with a view to pardoning them in the interest of justice and fair play,” Falana stated.

    He recalled that the immediate past military authorities put several soldiers on trial for demanding for equipment to prosecute the war on terror and that 70 of the soldiers were convicted and sentenced to death while scores were jailed by courts – martial.

    He argued that since the demand of the soldiers was legitimate, the military hierarchy could not justify the spurious sentences.

  • S/Africa lauds Buhari’s anti-corruption effort

    S/Africa lauds Buhari’s anti-corruption effort

    The South African High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mr Lulu Mnguni, on Friday lauded President Muhammadu Buhari’s ongoing efforts at fighting corruption.

    Mnguni told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that the president’s efforts would not only enhance Nigeria’s overall
    development, but would also positively reposition Africa’s image globally.

    The Envoy said that it was imperative for Nigerians to support Buhari’s administration’s ongoing effort at fighting corruption.

    “We strongly appreciate the role President Buhari in trying to play in creating an environment that is corruption-free in Nigeria.

    “Obviously, Buhari’s commitment to fighting corruption in the country will attract more investors and development to Nigeria.

    “We all need to know that it is no longer for self-serving but that the time has come for politicians to serve the people.

    “We all must know that Africa as a continent is always being condemned for our inability to fight corruption,’’ he said.

    Mnguni expressed optimism that Nigeria’s ability to fight corruption would also reduce corrupt practices in other African countries.

    The high commissioner also restated his government’s resolve to strengthening its “strategic partnership’’ with Nigeria in the years
    ahead.

    “We strongly believe that when things work in Nigeria, they will also work in our own South Africa.

    “South Africa will always see Nigeria as her strategic partner,’’ he said.

  • Details of our assets, by Buhari, Osinbajo

    Details of our assets, by Buhari, Osinbajo

    NIGERIANS got last night a rare view of  the wealth of their leaders – President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.

    The assets are as declared before the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) on assumption of office on May 29.

    The opening of the content of the declaration form with the CCB to the public is a fulfillment of the electoral promise made by the then All Progressives Congress (APC) candidates while contesting for the offices.

    The President said he would within 100 days in office make public his assets after they might have been verified by the CCB.

    It will be 100 days tomorrow since the inauguration of the new government.

    A statement released by the Senior Special Assistant (SSA) to the President on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu said:

     ”Documents submitted by President Muhammadu Buhari to the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) show that the retired General has indeed been living an austere and Spartan lifestyle, contrary to what many might expect of a former Head of State of Nigeria and one who has held a number of top government positions, such as governor, Minister of petroleum and the head of the Petroleum Development Trust Fund (PTDF).

    “The documents submitted to the CCB, which officials say are still being vetted and will soon be made public, show that prior to being sworn in on May 29, President Buhari had less than N30 million to his name. He also had only one bank account, with the Union Bank. President Buhari had no foreign account, no factory and no enterprises.

    “He also had no registered company and no oil wells.

    “The Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo (SAN) who had been a successful lawyer before his foray into politics declared a bank balance of about N94 million and 900,000 United States Dollars in his bank accounts.

    “President Buhari declared however that he had shares in Berger Paints, Union Bank and Skye Bank.

    “This is entirely unlike what one might expect from a former head of state of a country like Nigeria.

    “The documents also revealed that President Buhari had a total of five homes, and two mud houses in Daura. He had two homes in Kaduna, one each in Kano, Daura and in Abuja. One of the mud houses in Daura was inherited from his late older sister, another from his late father. He borrowed money from the old Barclays Bank to build two of his homes.

    “President Buhari also has two undeveloped plots of land, one in Kano and the other in Port Harcourt. He is still trying to trace the location of the Port Harcourt land.

    “In addition to the homes in Daura, he has farms, an orchard and a ranch. The total number of his holdings in the farm include: 270 head of cattle, 25 sheep, five horses, a variety of birds and a number of economic trees.

    “The documents also showed that the retired General uses a number of cars, two of which he bought from his savings and the others supplied to him by the federal government in his capacity as former Head of State. The rest were donated to him by well-wishers after his jeep was damaged in a Boko Haram bomb attack on his convoy in July 2014.

    “As revealed by the same forms, highlights of the Vice-President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo’s asset declaration include; his four-bedroom residence at Victoria Garden City, Lagos and a thtree-bedroom flat at 2 Mosley Road, Ikoyi. The Vice President also has a two-bedroom flat at the popular Redemption Camp along Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and a two-bedroom mortgaged property in Bedford, England. Aside from these, the Vice President has no other landed properties on the form.

    “Apart from his law firm, known as SimmonsCooper, the Vice-President also declared shareholding in six private companies based in Lagos, including Octogenerium Ltd., Windsor Grant Ltd., Tarapolsa, Vistorion Ltd., Aviva Ltd. and MTN Nigeria.

    “According to details shown on the form, the Vice-President has about ninety four million naira, nine hundred thousand US dollars and nineteen thousand pounds in Nigerian Banks with the foreign currencies kept in local domiciliary accounts. His personal vehicles are one Infinity 4-Wheel Drive SUV, one Mercedes Benz and a Prado Jeep.

    “As soon as the CCB is through with the process, the documents will be released to the Nigerian public and people can see for themselves.”

    The Fifth Schedule (part 1) of the Constitution (Code of Conduct for Public Officers) Sub section 11. (1), says:  Subject to the provisions of this Constitution, every public officer shall within three months after the coming into force of this Code of Conduct or immediately after taking office and thereafter –

    (a) at the end of every four years; and

    (b) at the end of his term of office, submit to the Code of Conduct Bureau a written declaration of all his properties, assets, and liabilities and those of his unmarried children under the age of eighteen years.”

    While it is not mandatory for the assests declared to be made public, the president and vice president have chosen to make their declaration public in line with transparency and accountability.

    Before now, only the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua among other leaders had publicly declared his assets.

  • ‘Anti-graft war will secure Nigeria’s future’

    ‘Anti-graft war will secure Nigeria’s future’

    President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday assured Nigerian youths that the anti-corruption campaign would secure their future.

    He made the remark in an address to members  of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), who marched on the gate of the Presidential Villa, Abuja to pledge their support for his anti-corruption campaign.

    President Buhari promised that he would do his best to place Nigeria well on the way to becoming the nation of their dreams.

    Buhari, who was represented by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, said: “Everything you have asked for are the things that will make for a good country, and what we are after is a good country, a country where our youths can have a future and a hope.

    “We are totally committed to building  a country where our youths can realise their full potential.

    “You can be assured that your welfare and well-being are topmost in our minds and very soon you will see the things we have promised come to fruition.

    “During the campaigns, change was our slogan, but today it is no longer a mere slogan, it is now a reality and we will see it in every facet of our lives.

    “The youths will feel it, the adults will feel it and old people will feel it and we will get the country of our dreams,’’

    Mr. Adesina later received a document addressed to President Buhari from the NANS President, Comrade Tijani Usman Shehu, and he promised that the President will look into their requests.

    In his remarks, Shehu said the students were united against corruption, cyber crime, prostitution, human trafficking, drug abuse and other anti-social vices.

    “Nigerian students demand that our future must be secured and we strongly believe in the President’s zero tolerance for corruption,’’ he said.

  • Nigeria, Sao Tome and Principe to review joint development authority

    Nigeria, Sao Tome and Principe to review joint development authority

    President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday said Nigeria and Sao Tome & Principe must sit down soon to review their Joint Development Authority to make it more efficient and productive.

    He spoke at a meeting with the Prime Minister of Sao Tome & Principe, Patrice Emery Trovoada, at the Presiodential Villa in Abuja.

    Buhari, in a statement by the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, said the two countries needed to intensify their collaborative efforts  to curtail piracy and insecurity in the Gulf of Guinea.

    He said with their shared strategic interest in securing the Gulf of Guinea, Nigeria and Sao Tome & Principe must work harder with stakeholders to keep it safe.

    President Buhari also noted that pirates who took advantage of the present low level of security in the gulf were causing incalculable damage to the economies of countries in the region.

    He therefore assured the visiting Prime Minister that Nigeria will do all within its powers to enhance security in the Gulf.

    The Prime Minister told President Buhari that his country will welcome a meeting next year to  review the management of the Joint Development Authority.

  • ‘Buhari’s directive led to improved power supply’

    ‘Buhari’s directive led to improved power supply’

    The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Power, Dr. Godknows Igali, has said the steady increase in power supply in the  country was due to  President Muhammadu Buhari’s directive to actors in the power sector to redouble their efforts.

    He said the president charged them to leave no stone unturned in ensuring uninterrupted power supply to Nigerians during his tenure.

    Igali spoke in Abuja during the signing ceremony of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with two indigenous investors in the power sector – Messrs. New Horizons Energy Resources and Quaint Global Energy Solutions.

    The two firms are  interested in renewable projects, especially solar, biomass and thermal plants respectively.

    Igali said the recent increase in power supply is not as a result of rain, as being speculated in some quarters, as marginal improvement from our hydro cannot be responsible for this fact, but it is as a result of increase in gas supply to the thermal plants, adding that our Anti-Vandalism Campaign is also yielding positive results.

    In a statement endorsed by the  Ministry’s Deputy Director (Press), Timothy Oyedeji yesterday, Igali said to sustain this trend, the present administration is determined to look in the direction of renewables, hence more emphasis will be placed on solar energy source.

    He reasoned that with clusters of solar plants built across the country, technical losses occasioned by hauling of energy over long distances will be reduced because the renewable source can be deplored effectively.  Captive power in embedded manner will also be available to distribution companies (DISCOs) at the distribution levels.

    He commended the companies for working with the  Federal Government in the development of mini power generation and micro grid, stressing that these efforts will translate to power stability and reliability.

    Igali said the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) is working on the critical corridors that would enhance the nation’s transmission capacity, enough to evacuate all energy to be produced that more gas will be available to the thermal plants.

    An official of  Quaint Global Energy Solutions, Seun Solesi, told the Permanent Secretary that his company is to enjoy a grant of $1.3 million from the Obama Power Africa Initiative’s United States Trade Development Agency to carry out feasibility studies for its 50megawatts (Mw) solar-powered plant in Machiok, Kaura Local Government Area of Kaduna State.  He said with  foreign partners, the project will start in earnest on 150 hectares of land approved by Governor Nasir el-Rufai.

    The representative of New Horizons said when the project come upstream, Nigerians will be recruited and trained in the U.S, while materials for building the plant would be sourced locally.

    He said the plan of the company is to build 100Mw solar power plant in Nasarawa State, 300 – 400Mw of biomass in Cross River and 300Mw of thermal in Rivers State.

  • As daggers are drawn out on Buhari’s 100 days

    Since the trouncing of the anti-democratic elements and whatever they represented at the polls by the votes of the Nigerian people, they have refused to come to terms with  the reality of change by attacking the President Muhammadu Buhari administration at every turn not minding how ridiculous and infantile their positions sound.

    Just when the dust had hardly settled on the brouhaha raised over appointments by Mr. President, some of these characters as expected, have drawn out the daggers again calling on him to fulfill his promises of a hundred days in office when from all available records, there was nowhere throughout his campaign platforms both at home and in the Diaspora, where President Buhari promised 100 days of governance in a four-year mandate.

    Realistically and rationally, periodic assessment of a democratic government by the citizenry has become a fad in the world in order to keep the government on its toes and prevent a derailment from its campaign promises and developments in the polity. Thus, Nigeria cannot be exemption, but to attempt to blackmail a government on the basis of a 100 days promise which cannot be traced, pointblank to it, is the height of absurdity and a sad reminder that agents of the old order of lawlessness and impunity are still on the prowl.

    Despite the Presidency denying knowledge and authorship of a 100 days promise and corroboration by renowned lawyer, Festus Keyamo who stated in a Punch newspaper publication of Tuesday 01/09/2015 that “But then, I can vouch for President Buhari. I travelled with him and I was with him at Chatham House when he was asked a question on what he would do in the first 100 days; and Buhari’s reply was very simple. He said, ‘I consider all of these promises about my 100 days in office fraudulent. I am not going to commit myself to any 100 days promises.’ These agents of, see-no-good in President Muhammadu Buhari, will not relent.

    And even, when Mr. President’s party came out categorically to deny ownership of the 100 days promise of governance based on its position that such a promise never emanated nor was authorised by either the party through its national publicity secretary, nor its then Presidential candidate, some of these characters would rather not hear of such and have gone to town painting it in fake red, trying to blackmail the government on an alleged figment of their imagination;100 days promise of 100 things to be done which include among others, the following:

    1. Making the exchange rate of 1 dollar equivalent to 1 naira
    2. Ending the Boko Haram insurgency
    3. Making the refineries work at 100%
    4. Eliminating corruption
    5. Ensuring successful transplant of all Nigerian men to women and vice versa
    6. Ensuring that all bachelors and spinsters get married and produce children, etc.

    All these so-called ridiculous 100 days promises by the sponsors of this campaign of, we must bring down the government by distracting it through campaign of calumny and sowing seed of discord in the polity, are laughable and must be understood within this context by all and sundry.

    What we must all understand and recognise is that while the Buhari Presidency tsunami was on the loose, millions of Nigerians scattered at home and in the Diaspora became willing volunteers on their own, contributing time and money to save their fatherland from an impending calamity. It’s an indisputable fact, that sane Nigerians were absolutely fed up with the way and manner the PDP-led Goodluck Jonathan government was likely to run the country aground and so, they launched themselves patriotically headlong into various kinds of campaign promises centred around the party’s manifesto of fighting corruption, insecurity, economy comatose, employment generation, etc to produce all kinds of materials to convince people to vote for a Buhari Presidency and it is not unlikely that overzealous supporters or mischief-makers from the other end who were deploying their political war chest against change through bribery of persons and groups with local and foreign currency in mind-boggling sums, also capitalised on the frenzy to produce materials and disseminate information which was ridiculous in order to disparage and make mockery of the movement.

    But one clear message which Nigerians must hold very dearly from this whole episode of sowing seed of discord between the government and the people is that both Mr. President and his party have reaffirmed their unalloyed commitment to implementing the party manifesto based on its electioneering promises of fighting insecurity, corruption, unemployment, economy comatose, infrastructural decay, among others in line with the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria within the next four years of their democratic mandate and to us, this is reassuring.

    As Mr. President gets set to release his long-awaited ministerial nominees, it is important to admonish the government and the citizenry to be watchful and ever-ready as enemies of progress and democracy are on the prowl and more than ever determined to psychologically wear down the people and the government by campaign of calumny and division along religious, ethnic and other negative lines.

    In the mean time, instead of dissipating its energy in always responding to criticisms and sinister comments, it is imperative to call on Mr. President’s media team to live up to their responsibility by disseminating information, prompt and relevant information, across all channels to Nigerians on the achievement and giant strides being recorded by the government in areas of national life, which we are all living witness to, such as, improved electricity generation and supply, improved security and updates on the war against Boko Haram, the revitalisation of the refineries in reducing fuel imports and decentralisation of distribution and supplies, the state of recovery of looted funds, instilling discipline into our national life through responsible leadership, appointments into public office based on character and integrity instead of godfatherism and other primordial sentiments, etc.

    To the vanguards of the old order of lawlessness and impunity in violations of the Constitution and God’s law, who have refused to sheathe their daggers of, Nigeria shall know no peace, our message to them is that, we are more than prepared because eternal vigilance is the price for liberty. Again, our prayers is that may the Good Lord grant them good health to rejoice with the generality of Nigerians as things change for the better under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari within the next four years to the glory of God and man.

  • Why Buhari must ignore, Nwabueze, Clark, Okunronmu

    I think President Buhari should worry more about how to keep his own side of the social contract with Nigerian voters. Elders who claim to speak for Ohaneze and old Afenifere, associations of less than ten veteran politicians, saw no evil and heard no evil. Now that the chickens have come home to roost, elders who behaved as if they didn’t have stakes in Nigeria are using their control and influence of the media to jam our earlobes with howling newspaper headlines such as  ‘outrage grows across Nigeria’, ‘more outrage over Buhari appointments’, ‘Buhari’s lopsided appointments’ split the north’, ‘Buhari’s war against the south’etc

    And why is the country being heated up? The APC spokesman Lai Mohammed and Governor Adam Oshiomhole made some disturbing disclosures. They claimed  N3.8 trillion of the N8.1 trillion  earned from crude oil between 2012 and 2015 was not accounted for  by NNPC; they spoke of $2.1b unauthorised withdrawal from the excess crude account; missing N109.7b royalty from oil firms;N6b allegedly looted by ministers, 160b barrels of crude worth $13.9b lost between 2009 and 2012.; $15m from botched arms deal with South Africa and N183b yet to be accounted for in NNDC, $700m taken from the Sovereign Wealth Account for the second Onitsha Bridge without any bridge and the money-gobbling Onitsha-Owerri-Enugu dual carriage that is leading nowhere. Added to all these are ‘a mind-shattering $2.2billion-arms scandal and an alleged $6.9 million fraud by chief of security (CS)) to ex-president Jonathan committed under the guise of buying three mobile stages for Jonathan’s campaign

    But these are all mere allegations which according to Olisa Mentuh, PDP spokesman are ‘irresponsible, reckless and provocative ‘bandied imaginary figures’. But while one would have expected our respected Nwabueze to wait for the judicial process to start, he chose to issue a statement titled ‘Corrupt Practices: “Igbo leaders position on probe of past governments’, where he argued against limiting the probe to the administration of Jonathan which according to him ‘would be ‘selective, unjust and unfair’. He speculated that such a probe will be used to humiliate political opponents of government. The question to ask is why Prof. Nwabueze has chosen to fight for those who have neither been accused nor charged. As for Chief Edwin Clark, ex-president Obasanjo who he alleged is corrupt must first be probed.  But for many, that Chief Clark is only just discovering that Obasanjo is corrupt after he had single handedly promoted Jonathan from deputy governor to governor, vice-president, and President with grateful Jonathan describing Obasanjo as the third most important influence on his life after God and his parents is a measure of the quality of his advice to Jonathan who ended up describing Obasanjo as a ‘motor park tout’.

    And those who have taken up arms over appointment forget we run a presidential system where the buck ends on the presidents table. As soon as  Buhari  named  Dr  Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu as the Group MD of NNPC, an institution that controls over 75% of the nations earning, Dr. Ezeife, who had openly expressed lack of faith in Buhari, said the position was not enough for the Igbo. But with the filling of some 30 positions, ranging from his chief of staff, national security adviser and SGF, a post he gave to a pastor from one of the minority ethnic groups in the north, perhaps as an answer to Dr Eziefe and others who said they mobilised against Buhari for fear of Islamisation of the country, these permanent Igbo office seekers have decided to heat up the polity. They now say the SGF position recently vacated by Anyim Pius Anyim ought to have been ceded to Igbo by a president they said they don’t trust. Didn’t he say he “belongs to all and he belongs to no one”? –  they reasoned. And suddenly Kachikwu ceased being an Igbo man but a Delta Igbo. And those who have suddenly forgotten South-South and South-East cornered 30 out of the forty most important parastatals in the country only yesterday, ostensibly on behalf of the Igbo poor are now set to wage war against Buhari for appointing those he trusted. The thousands of offices yet to be filled, they openly argue, is not as important as being a member of the kitchen cabinet of a president they said they would mobilise against if another opportunity comes up tomorrow.

    Self serving Igbo leaders who fraudulently swear in the name of their people to secure positions have their counterparts in the Yoruba country. The self-styled Southern Nigeria Peoples Assembly (SNPA) hosted by Mimiko  in Akure last week where President Buhari was criticised for what was described as “his lopsided appointments and selective war against corruption”, was the same group which in January this year endorsed Jonathan for reelection in Enugu. Unfortunately at the Akure gathering, Mimiko and his relevance-seeking group spoke not for the Yoruba but for themselves. Yoruba are often more concerned about a leadership that will guarantee fairness and justice for all. As Bode Thomas argued during the constitutional debate leading to independence, Yoruba quest for regionalism was to prevent the country from being subjected to the rule of a one-eyed-king. During the 1959 elections, Awo offered to serve as Zik’s deputy. He voluntarily resigned as Finance Secretary and de facto Prime Minister under Gowon after the civil war.  If Yoruba supported MKO Abiola in 1993, it was because he was the best material in that election, a fact confirmed by his landslide victory all over the country including military barracks and in Kano where Tofa was floored in his constituency. Yoruba rejected Ernest Shonekan the impostor and was literally chased out of power through the judicial process. It was for the same reason Yoruba rejected Obasanjo who lost his Abeokuta ward election in 1999 when the military and those who constituted themselves into the hegemonic power bloc in Nigeria graciously decided to allow a Yoruba man become president. In the not too distant past, the Yoruba supported Tambuwal to become the Speaker of the seventh assembly against a Yoruba candidate. It is therefore a disservice to the Yoruba nation for Mimiko to give a wrong impression that the Yoruba are fighting Buhari’s government they helped to put in place over appointments.

    The mood of the nation today allows Buhari to ignore the noises of errant elders, and if he so desires, seek from his Daura village a minister for Abuja Territory who would not cede prime Abuja land to a sitting president, his wife and a Secretary to government, Ministers of Petroleum and Finance who will not jointly preside over the theft and disbursement of N1,7triilion to fuel fraudsters, a Minister of Defence who will be loyal to Nigeria instead of fighting the president’s dirty political  wars in the colours of ‘Ekitigate’, pacification of Oshun and disruption of public work with soldiers in Lagos, a Minster of Education who will not be too engrossed mobilising militants for the president’s reelection bid while universities and polytechnics  shut down for close to a year and a Minister of Internal Affairs who will not fleece young job seekers of over N1b and end up supervising state murder of some of them through sloppy arrangement. And if it is from Daura he can find a replica of ‘Kashikwu’, said to be a round peg in a round hole for NNPC, to clean up other stinking parastatals, he has the support of Nigerians.

  • Buhari’s appointments and ethnic divide

    SIR: The age-long ethnic divisions and mutual suspicion among Nigerians have been brought to the fore once again. President Buhari recently announced the appointment of six individuals including the Secretary to the Federal Government and this announcement has been met with criticisms from different sections of the Nigerian society. A statement in defence of the president’s appointments of twenty five persons since the beginning of the administration stated that the president would right the wrong and would ensure to pacify all frayed nerves in subsequent political appointments.

    Some Nigerians have also faulted this statement saying that the president knew all along that the appointments made so far were tilted towards a certain section of the Nigerian society.

    Now President Buhari has been tagged the “King of the North” in an article by no less a person than Chief Femi Fani-Kayode who described the president’s appointments in three months after he was sworn into office as a mess. This article has lent its voice to the various criticisms and attacks on President Buhari’s political appointments and has also increased the debate about the intentions and agenda of the president.

    We the Nigerian people, especially political parties and politicians, have to champion the task of nation building through cohesion and integration of the diversity of cultures and ethnic groups in Nigeria. We need to move away from our old ways of thinking because Nigeria has been experiencing a setback on account of tribalism, ethnicity, sectionalism, zoning and federal character. President Buhari should not see these attacks and criticisms over his government’s appointments as personal but rather as a wake-up call and an opportunity to work earnestly towards achieving nationhood and national unity as many Nigerians do not have an outlook of one Nigeria.

    Chief Femi Fani-Kayode said in his article that the logic of ignoring federal character for merit is absurd. Besides, he concluded that equitable distribution of political appointments is a pre-requisite for peace, security and national unity.

    I beg to disagree with this assertion as federal character and zoning have not served our collective interest since independence. What they have done at best is to inflict pains on the Nigerian people and hamper the country’s growth and development. That is why the issue of tribalism, ethnicity and sectionalism still remain a big problem in Nigeria after 54 years of independence. Nigerian politicians and leaders should not fan the embers of discord and disunity among the different tribes and ethnic groups of the Nigerian society. They should rather champion the cause of national unity and nationhood.

    Federal character, zoning and the likes have been used over the years as a way of addressing the problem of ethnicity and tribalism in Nigeria but these principles have failed to solve the problem of disunity —creating ýmore problems that the APC had to run away from them due to the negative impact they had on the PDP during their 16 years rule.

    Some people have admonished those who argue in favour of merit over federal character not to speak like illiterates. Well, being in support of federal character over merit as a criterion for government appointments does not mean that a person knows very much either.

    President Buhari has to work tirelessly towards achieving national unity and nationhood. Though the present administration has security, the fight against corruption and jobs creation through the economy as its top priorities due to the ýexigency of our current national crisis, the Buhari administration now has to include national unity as one of its top priorities.

    The president’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, has said that political appointments would be balanced in the long run. It is not enough to balance government’s appointments but it is important to change our sectional and regional outlook which has affected our ability to see ourselves as Nigerians first.

    President Buhari and all political elites have to work towards fostering social harmony among over 170 million Nigerians and not contribute towards widening the ethnic divide that has plagued the country for many years. Governor Adams Oshiomhole in his defence of the president’s appointments said that we must not reduce governance to political patronage of bread and butter but unfortunately, we are yet to move beyond this point as a country. Besides, political appointments have over the years been consolation prizes rather than getting the best minds to move us into the future.

    Nigerian leaders and politicians must recognise the dangers posed to the unity of Nigeria by being sentimental, encouraging tribalism and playing the ethnic card. It is high time they began to work on addressing issues emanating from our stark contradictions and flawed political foundation; and which are responsible for Nigeria’s perennial crisis as well as the current criticisms and reactions trailing President Buhari’s recent appointments.

    We are at the early months of the new administration and there is no better time to work towards national unity and nationhood than now.

     

    • Bolaji Samson Aregbeshola is  the author of ‘’Nigerian Political Parties and Politicians: Winding Road from Country to Nation’’.
  • Buhari vows to end incessant strikes

    Buhari vows to end incessant strikes

    President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday expressed his administration’s commitment to boosting national productivity and taking all necessary actions to end incessant strikes by workers in vital sectors of the Nigerian economy.

    He made the declaration during a meeting with the Permanent Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Labour and Productivity, Dr. Onubuogo Clement Illoh and other officials from the ministry.

    Buhari said that he was particularly disturbed by the seemingly endless strikes in Nigeria’s health sector which have contributed to the fall in the standard of health services in the country.

    The President directed the Ministry’ officials to liaise with other stakeholders and quickly work out proposals for ending the recurring strikes in the health, education, transport, oil and gas, power and other critical sectors of the national economy.

    Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who was also present at the meeting, urged Dr. Illoh and his staff to make an input to ongoing plans for the extension of welfare services to poor and disabled persons.

    Dr. Illoh had earlier attributed some of the recurrent strikes in the country to the inclination of some government officials to enter into agreements with financial implications without carrying the Ministries of Finance and Labour along.

    He said that the Ministry of Labour has now introduced a Code of Conduct for Government Negotiators barring them from entering into agreements with financial implications without the consent of the President.

    Speaking with State House correspondents at the end of the meeting, Illoh said: “At the end of discussion, the president and vice president showed critical interest in three areas. First is the issue of national social insurance trust fund that has to do with social security and social welfare.

    “At the moment, the agency covers all sectors, both private and public, that is organization s employing five or more persons. You will also know that the ruling party has as its manifesto, the issue of providing social welfare. We have keyed into this.

    “The second area is incessant strikes and lockouts with special reference to health sector. We listed the causes of strikes and how we can quickly ameliorate this in all sectors. One way of doing that is to curb impunity.

    “And establish rule of law in the management of trade disputes. Towards this end the institution for the management of trade disputes will be strengthened. Institutions of conflict mediation, industrial arbitration panel up to the industrial court of Nigeria, there need for capacity development to be able to cope with the challenges associated with knowledge, technique and attitude and behavior because if you look at the causal factor responsible for strikes and lockouts.

    “It can be categorized into three individual. Some individuals have propensity for trouble making. There are policies that encourage strikes between management and workers and there are external factors.

    “For instance when Nigerians go on strike because of increase in prices of products, those are not directly related to work. These are factors outside working environment but bear great influence to industrial relations harmony.”