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Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity,Femi Adesina,has criticized a recent Businesday Newspaper article that claimed 81 per cent of the President’s appointments went in favour of individuals from the northern part of the country.
Adesina said in a statement on Saturday that the article, published on October 29, 2017, “is either an ignorant effort or a mischievous attempt by the publication to mislead the public and portray the Buhari administration in bad light.”
According to him, the claim by the article that 81 of President Buhari’s 100 appointees are Northerners, could only drive home what the writer presented as facts because it was a selection of 100 appointees, even as he said there were inaccuracies in the designation and names of some of the appointees listed with many others left out.
“The author wrongly named the Director-General, NISER, as Haruna Yerima, whereas the DG, NISER is actually Folarin Gbadebo-Smith. Again, the author wrongly identified the CEO, NDLEA as Muhammad Abdallah. However, Mrs. Roli Bode-George is the CEO, NDLEA,”Adesina said.
He noted that there were at least 50 names of the President’s appointees that the article didn’t mention that are not from the North, just as there are some others that were already in place before the administration came in but were reconfirmed by the Buhari administration.
Adesina listed appointees from other parts of the country that the article left out to include: Senator Olabiyi Durojaiye, NCC Chairman; Sunday Dare, NCC Executive Commissioner; Jide Zeitlin, NSIA Chairman and Anthony Ayine, Auditor General of the Federation.
Others, he said are, Anibor Kragha, COO NNPC; Chiedu Ugbo, MD NDPHC; Uche Orji, CEO NSIA; Osita Okechukwu, DG VON; Yemi Kale, DG NBS and Waziri Adio, Executive Secretary NEITI.
He, therefore, explained that the breakdown of current Federal Government agency appointments per state reflects the true picture of the spread and that President Buhari’s appointments are not lopsided.
“From all records, majority of the President’s appointees across different portfolios are not from the North, as the publication erroneously alleged,” said Adesina.
