BY AYO ESAN
FORMER Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, Timi Frank, on Friday, faulted the nomination of the nation’s immediate past Service Chiefs for appointment as non-career Ambassadors
President Muhammadu Buhari had, in a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, announced General Abayomi Olonisakin (retd), Lt. General Tukur Buratai (retd), Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ibas (retd), Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar (retd), and Air Vice Marshal Mohammed Usman (retd), as non-career Ambassadors-Designate.
Frank in a statement in Abuja, however, described Buhari’s action as rewarding incompetence at the expense of the nation’s global image.
He added that the nomination of the former security chiefs as envoys was meant to dress them in diplomatic immunity in order to allegedly shield them from investigation and prosecution by the International Criminal Court already probing the varied atrocities and crimes against humanity, which he said the ex-Service Chiefs might have individually or collectively perpetrated while in office.
The Bayelsa-born political activist mentioned the shootings and killings by soldiers at Lekki tollgate during the EndSARS protests while stressing his point.
He appealed to the Senate to put national interest and pride first by rejecting the nominees.
He also called on members of the international community, particularly the countries where the ex-Service Chiefs might be posted to as envoys, to reject them.
He vowed to mobilise Nigerians in diaspora to stage protests in countries of their primary assignment should the ex-Service Chiefs ever be posted as diplomats by Buhari.
Frank said, “The nomination of these ex-Service Chiefs to represent Nigeria in foreign countries is an international embarrassment and a new low for the country’s image.
“The world has gone past the era where incompetent and sacked military chiefs can be considered fit and proper persons to represent a democratic country in the conduct of high-wired diplomatic business.
“Buhari has clearly got this wrong. He erroneously believes that his administration is a military junta.
“This nomination shows that it has become habitual for General Buhari to reward incompetence. Only recently, he appointed a new Chief of Army Staff who was sacked in 2017 by former ex-Chief of Army Staff, General Buratai, for incompetence.
“How can men with such huge baggage of human rights abuses, administrative impropriety and history of failures be chosen to bring Nigeria political and economic laurel at home or at the international arena?
“Nigerians need to stand up against this anomaly. The damage will be colossal and we are all involved. The time to speak up is now!”
