A storm of numbers rent the past week over appointments. It is the sort of debate that focuses on the elite rather than the people. No one posed questions about the quality of the appointees, what have they accomplished, and where have they erred.
Rather, tongues wagged about tribes. This sort of furore deviates from progress to the embers of greed. It is hypocrisy and an elite distraction.
I am not underplaying the value of inclusion. But this essayist wanted, at least, a level of sophistication in the fracas. I expected the captious barbs to levitate a little for ideas rather than sentiment. But as Oscar Wilde noted, man is a creature of sentiment and not of reason.
The storm trooper is none other than Ali Ndume, the querulous senator who I discredited not long ago when I compelled him to confess his sins in public.
In his last censorious fart, he queried the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)’s staff realignment. He cried not because he loved North or hated South. It was a disguised plea for his relatives there who might be moved South. He had played a nepotist card in giving jobs. After all, as a ‘senator concern’ how would they know that he is a big man if he cannot put his children or nieces or nephews etc, in the posh sweetness of jobs?
He swiftly confessed after my challenge. But as a man who has no self-awareness, he was out again ranting a year later over appointments. In between, he had unfurled his forked tongue about the tax bill. It all had to do with spoils. But this is no time to batten down those details.
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On the issue of lopsided appointments, he seems to have revived his motor park hubris. He said it is not because he is against President Bola Tinubu. He was just being fair. Haba Malam.
This man wants access to the president. He is not getting it. He has turned himself into the rottweiler at the gate, and has to bark all night so all who are asleep can open the gate and give him shelter and a bone.
He should tell us when was the last time he had a one-on-one meeting with the president? He is just a bitter man. And then he is woofing and growling without figures.
Ndume loves to speak to galleries with an empty-barrel vanity because there is always an audience for such full-throated extravagance.
Now what are the facts? He probably did not like the fact that the NNPCL boss is named Ojulari, and he forgot that the man is from the north central. He forgot that the new chairman of the board is his kinsman. He is still angry that the FCT minister is from Rivers State and that the CBN governor is named Cardoso and not Ali. This is the sort of parochial torment in his soul.
Maybe he should have visited the Federal Character Commission (FCC) and enquired, as this essayist has done, and obtained the facts.
Does he know that under Bola Tinubu, the appointments are still skewed to the north? During the Buhari era, north central had 110 while Tinubu raised it to 137. The Northeast had 102, and now they have 91. The Northwest had 127 but have now 134. The Southeast stayed almost the same and fell from 71 under Buhari to 70 now. South-south rose marginally from 71 to 79. Southwest had a sharp rise from 91 to 146. In aggregate, the north has a total of 339 to the south’s 233.
If anyone wants to complain, it is not a man like Ali Ndume. I would have said the South-south and Southeast should be up in arms. But they, too, and I am from the South-south, should exercise a sense of history.
Not long ago when Goodluck Jonathan was president, our Southeast brothers called Jonathan Azikiwe on the ground of his favoritism. His main beneficiaries were either from the Southeast or South-south, and he had no compunction about it. No one complained at that time about a lopsided profile of jobs.
In fact, the British press wrote vivid stories of Nigerians of a certain extraction on a shopping mania, buying up High Street in London. That was the Jonathan effect.
Ayim was secretary to the federation and he should tell us if he did not give more jobs to his kinsmen and some South-south fellows than anywhere else. In fact, I know of an Urhobo man who he would not allow to do a second term because he had to replace him with his kinsman. We cannot forget Okonjo Iweala wailing that only Southeasterners qualified for jobs.
The idea of federal character should not be seen as a snapshot in time. It has to be seen as balance over time. The Southwest may seem to have revved up its profile under Tinubu, but when was the last time that happened? Some said the premium jobs have gone to Yoruba. I ask, when was the last time a Yoruba man was CBN chief, or chief of army staff, or head of Customs or head of NNPCL?
We have run a historically unbalanced profile of jobs. This is because our leaders over time prefer conclave of tribe to merit, or the abused word, Fairness. It is for this lack of fairness that we have accepted the idea of zoning the presidency.
We don’t trust ourselves yet. Imagine if Tinubu were not president, the last time we might have had a Yoruba chief of army staff would be about three decades ago under Alani Akinrinade.
Did the East not celebrate when Jonathan made Ihejirika the chief of army staff? The first since Ironsi. During a NIMASA anniversary, they gave out merit awards to staff who had served over decades.
It turned out that when a northerner was director general, it was northerners on the staff; under a South-south DG, it was South-south staff, and under a Yoruba DG, it was Yoruba staff. Each DG to his own. It is typical in virtually all federal agencies. Time has been the tool for balancing, rather than attaining merit in a snapshot in time.
Bigots like Ndume should look at the northern profile of Tinubu’s appointment. He addressed the main issues plaguing the north, health, poverty, security, housing and education. All the ministers heading those critical sectors are from the North. Except the deployment of Alausa to education. But the minister of state is also from the North. Is that not an opportunity to attack the issues through their appointees?
Since 1999, when did appointees change the poverty or state of development in the regions of the presidents? Never. During Jonathan, the Southeast had its worst roads, and Fashola has been the best to have lifted eastern infrastructure. I stand to be corrected. Jonathan’s Second Niger Bridge never took off. Buhari redeemed it. Yet, the poverty index under Buhari was appalling up North, especially among the talakawa who swore by his name.
What we should adduce is development, not elite allocation of offices. That is our bane. We call some offices juicy? Some did not want Wike in FCT because they thought it is “juicy.” It is a code word for corruption. This is pharisaic. The debate over lopsidedness is not the worry of the Fulani farmer or Igbo spare parts seller. It is an elite who craves a Dubai mansion.
