Many Nigerians are still weighing in with either criticisms or praise to the government of the day on the contentious issue of federal character principles and there is an indication that the controversy over the subject will not be defused anytime soon.
Also, as the 2027 general elections draws nearer, federal character, with the ongoing national discourse it has been generating, is expected to be made a campaign issue by politicians on both sides of the divide.
Enshrined in the 1999 Constitution (as amended), the federal character principle seeks to ensure that appointments to public service institutions fairly reflect the linguistic, ethnic, religious and geographic diversity of Nigeria.
But as simple as this mission statement may sound, the body saddled with the responsibility, the Federal Character Commission, has come under scrutiny by Nigerians who continue to speculate about the level of influence the president of Nigeria, Bola Tinubu, has on the commission.
After he was sworn in as president, Tinubu, a Yoruba man, made many key appointments. He also replaced several appointees in his administration who were a part of the administration of Muhammadu Buhari, his predecessor, and stakeholders were all lovey-dovey towards the president.
However, the first salvos of accusations against Tinubu’s appointments were provoked after the president relieved a Northerner, Mele Kyari, of his position as the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited.
The head of the NNPCL is a position that is considered to be “juicy” by Nigerians. And since the president went on to appoint Bashir Ojulari as the new GMD, he (Tinubu) was criticized for not only having a “Yorubanisation” agenda in the NNPCL but also jettisoning the spirit of federal character.
Many Nigerians, too, had thought at the time that the new NNPCL GMD was from the South West, but Ojulari hails from the North Central region – Kwara State precisely.
“This is the first time we are having the GMD of NNPCL from the North. And we are having the chairman of NNPCL board from the North. We also have the secretary to the government of the federation from the North”
That being said, it was an Atlanta-based newspaper columnist, Farooq Kperogi, who drew attention to and criticised Tinubu’s appointment of Ojulari.
Kperogi also accused the former Lagos State Governor of ethnic favouritism in the NNPCL, alleging too that Tinubu was appointing “Yoruba people” to prominent positions there.
The author and media scholar also said that Tinubu’s actions were in tandem with former President Buhari’s “Arewacentricity” during the latter’s administration.
In response to Kperogi’s article, an ex-Governor of Kaduna State and former ally of the president, Nasir El-Rufai, said that two wrongs do not make a right.
El-Rufai, who is now a member of the Social Democratic Party after he defected from the APC, also advocated for sensible inclusion over arrogant exclusion.
Although the presidency replied to El-Rufai by accusing him of being a sore loser because his ministerial nomination was rejected by the Senate, it did not stop other Northerners from taking further shots at the president.
A senator representing Borno South, Ali Ndume, also got the presidency’s attention after he, too, faulted Tinubu’s appointments.
Ndume cited the breaching of federal character principle.
He said that Tinubu violated the constitutional requirement for balanced representation in government appointments.
Ndume then clarified, “It’s not that I’m just making accusations. And it’s not that I’m saying, well, the president has no right to do that kind of thing.
“But it’s a constitutional provision. Section 14 (3) of the constitution is very, very clear.
“When you look at it vis-a-vis the appointments made so far, and there are political appointments, the constitution is very clear.”
The Senator added that it was because of the need to avoid such infractions that the constitution clearly stated that appointments, especially political appointments, should reflect the federal character.
Ndume also said all he was doing was simply calling the attention of the President to such infractions so that it could be corrected.
And failure to do so, according to him, could “boomerang at a certain period of time.”
The presidency has, however, been working overtime to convince Nigerians that contrary to Ndume’s position, Tinubu has been fair in how he has been making appointments.
The president’s men had released a list showing all government appointees and the region they come from, but it caused a great furore after some eagle-eyed critics observed that some notable names from the South West were omitted from the list.
The South West, judging from the list that was released, has more appointees in Tinubu’s government but that has not stopped some Nigerians from speaking up in defence of the president.
A public affairs analyst, Terrence Guanam, said, “If we look at the context of what is happening in this country, it is mostly the people that benefit from appointments in this country that cry for federal character when they lose certain positions.
“It is also quite unfortunate that Ndume who came on national television to claim that he came from a very minority tribe in the North East, is the one (who is) criticizing an appointment from a minority from the North Central that has been made GMD of NNPCL.
“And so when you begin to bring those contexts together, you begin to know that people are using sentiment over merit in what should happen.
“This is the first time we are having the GMD of NNPCL from the North. And we are having the chairman of NNPCL board from the North. We also have the secretary to the government of the federation from the North.
“If we go to Customs, since 1990, this is the first time a Yoruba person has been Comptroller General of Customs.
“If we go to Immigration, since 1983, there has been no Yoruba person as the CG of Immigration. If we come to the Police, since Luis Edet was made the IGP – apart from Musiliu Smith and Tafa Balogun – this is the first time a Yoruba is made the IGP.
“So, most of this federal character they discuss, you begin to feel that some people have begun to shortchange others using the name of federal character; the same people complaining about GMD (should know that) the North East has had six GMD’s of the NNPCL in the past.”
On his part, the Commissioner representing Lagos State at the Federal Character Commission, Abdulwasiu Baba-Allah, said, “The numbers don’t lie. And the numbers show that the appointments made by president Tinubu have been very well balanced.
“As a matter of fact, the North has more than the South. The percentage shows 55 percent of the appointments – 657 or so, of them – to be more skewed to the North.
“The North Central leads with 21 percent; the North West has 2 percent; only the North East has 14 percent of appointments as it stands right now.
“The Federal Character Commission itself, the agency that should be balancing the appointments, has, as we speak today, the chairman from the North Central region.
“The Secretary of the Commission is from the North East and they haven’t said anything about lopsided appointments.
“And since its inception in 1995, the FCC has never had somebody from the South West.
“The Independent National Electoral Commission, too, has never had anybody from the South West as its Chairman. If tomorrow somebody from the South West is nominated or announced, there will likely be noise and cries.”
A political analyst, Muyiwa Bello, said that he initially believed the federal character crusaders from the North until he saw how appointments were spread among the different regions.
He said, “After Kperogi, Ndume and the rest of the federal character crusaders made their claims, I initially believed them.
“You know that Buhari led us to believe that there must always be regional bias in appointments, considering how he made his.
So, in that regard, Buhari’s past actions made me to judge Tinubu unfairly. Immediately I heard all the talks about federal character.
“However, when I saw how the appointments were spread, I realized that the president is fair to both the North and South.
“About the Yoruba having more people in the government, that is expected. Any President from another region would do the same thing. And let’s not forget that the difference between South West appointments and others isn’t outrageous.”
