EKITI State Governor Ayo Fayose has again attacked President Muhammadu Buhari, accusing him of carrying out a “tainted ethnic and tribal colouration inimical to the country’s unity.”
Fayose, reacting to the appointments by the President, accused Buhari of carrying out what he called “northernisation of Nigeria.”
He said the appointments “negate the principle of federal character and it appears the unity in diversity of Nigeria is being taken for granted by the President.”
[quote_right]In a statement yesterday by his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, Fayose said it was wrong for Buhari to have made 31 major appointments and only seven would come from the South.[/quote_right]
[quote_center]He accused the President of abandoning the key projects initiated by former President Goodluck Jonathan, such as the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Abuja-Lokoja Highway and the Second Niger Bridge.[/quote_center]
Fayose asked: “Under Buhari, are people from the South only meant to be hounded and harassed by anti-corruption agencies and the Department of State Security (DSS), while those from the North are meant to enjoy Federal Government’s juicy appointments?”
He said: “Besides the lopsided appointments by the President, I’m worried that the building of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway has been slowed down and work has stopped on the Lokoja-Abuja roads, which are the major roads linking the South with the North.
“Also, we have been told by the Federal Government that the Second Niger Bridge project has been suspended and one is beginning to remember how Buhari cancelled the Lagos metro-line project in 1985 at a loss of over $78 million (then) to the Lagos tax payers.”
Fayose, who noted that the country could only move forward if there was equity and fairness, said those who made the constitution and enshrined the principle of federal character were mindful of the nation’s ethnic diversity, adding that President Buhari’s running Nigeria as if he was a Northern Nigeria’s President was not in the country’s interest.
His words: “They said the President made the appointments on merit and I wish to ask whether there are no competent people in the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the South, especially in the Southeast where no one has been appointed.
“Are they saying Igbo leader like Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, who graduated with a first-class degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Lagos, is not competent to be appointed as Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF)?
