L
LequteMan
Guest
Nigeria - Human rights lawyer from the South South, Mr. Festus Keyamo, has come out to defend President Muhammadu Buhari’s recent cabinet appointments.
According to Keyamo, Buhari hasn't done anything wrong with his appointments and called for the public to stop castigating the president's decision.
"For those positions he has filled, they are supposed to be occupied by those who are personally loyal to the President. I do not expect him to leave those positions to be filled by his political party.
"For example, you cannot say the chief of staff should be someone that is loyal to a power bloc in his party. That kind of person would close everyday from work, pick his telephone, and report all the activities of the President to his political camp. That would not be fair because that kind of person would not be loyal to the President but by the person who nominated him for that office.
"There are many positions that the political party can fill that will not have direct access to the itinerary and activities of the President. That is why I said people should be calm. There are ministerial positions to be filled, heads of agencies and many others.
"For me, no government position is different from the other and that is the ideal situation. We should not classify some positions as more beneficial than others because that is a euphemism for corruption. It is a euphemism to say that some positions are better than others.
"I agree that some of the best brains are from the South while some of the best are from the North. We have brains everywhere. However, why people are clamouring for these positions that have just been filled is that people see them as juicy positions and this is my problem.
He says the president has only filled about 5% of the positions.
"We are saying that we cannot make a holistic assessment until the President fills all these positions.
"We must change our orientation such that any appointment given to anybody from any part of the country must be accepted with dignity and pride and patriotism," he said.
Punch Newspaper
According to Keyamo, Buhari hasn't done anything wrong with his appointments and called for the public to stop castigating the president's decision.
"For those positions he has filled, they are supposed to be occupied by those who are personally loyal to the President. I do not expect him to leave those positions to be filled by his political party.
"For example, you cannot say the chief of staff should be someone that is loyal to a power bloc in his party. That kind of person would close everyday from work, pick his telephone, and report all the activities of the President to his political camp. That would not be fair because that kind of person would not be loyal to the President but by the person who nominated him for that office.
"There are many positions that the political party can fill that will not have direct access to the itinerary and activities of the President. That is why I said people should be calm. There are ministerial positions to be filled, heads of agencies and many others.
"For me, no government position is different from the other and that is the ideal situation. We should not classify some positions as more beneficial than others because that is a euphemism for corruption. It is a euphemism to say that some positions are better than others.
"I agree that some of the best brains are from the South while some of the best are from the North. We have brains everywhere. However, why people are clamouring for these positions that have just been filled is that people see them as juicy positions and this is my problem.
He says the president has only filled about 5% of the positions.
"We are saying that we cannot make a holistic assessment until the President fills all these positions.
"We must change our orientation such that any appointment given to anybody from any part of the country must be accepted with dignity and pride and patriotism," he said.
Punch Newspaper
