Senator: Umar Dangiwa’s letter on lopsided appointments meaningless

Ajibola Basiru, spokesman of the senate, says the letter written by Umar Dangiwa, former military administrator of Kaduna, on alleged lopsided appointments made by President Muhammadu Buhari is filled with “political platitudes not statistics”.

Basiru said this after he was asked by journalists on Tuesday if the senate is an “accomplice” in the president’s decision to pick appointees from the north.

In an open letter to Buhari, the retired colonel had said appointing more people from one section of the would ruin the country.

Before Dangiwa’s letter, the president had been criticised for his choices for appointments.

While dismissing the question as “beer parlour discussion”, the senate spokesman said section 14 (3) of the constitution provides that there should be “diversity” in appointments so that one region does not become dominant.

“Please do a tabulation of all appointments and show empirically, scientifically how they are lopsided. I will not rely on talks in what people call beer parlour discussion. Section 14 (3) is clear that there must be diversity in terms of federal position such that one part of the country will not be seen to be domineering,” he said.

“Rather than speaking generally and what somebody said, it will be better to come up with empirical evidence. What are the federal positions that the senate has capacity to make confirmation, how many of them have been sent, how many of them are outstanding and what shows that they came from one part of the country.

“Politicians can be mischievous, I’m not saying any senator is being mischievous, when you talk of the north, you have three zones from the north; north-central, north-east and north-west but when people want to be mischievous when an appointment comes from north-central, they will say he is from the north. But when it suits them they will talk about south-east, south-south and south-west.

“I read the letter by colonel Umar. The letter was three-quarter more of political platitudes not statistics. If you want to tell someone that they are cheating you, you provide them with evidence.”