The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has said that President Bola Tinubu’s latest appointments are a ‘desperate ploy to regain the trust of northern Nigerians’.
In recent months, many prominent political figures had criticised the President’s appointments as ‘lopsided’ and in violation of the federal character principle enshrined in the constitution.
In May, the Federal Government named 12 northerners to the management teams of various federal agencies, a move seen by critics as an afterthought.
On Friday, President Tinubu also appointed Muhammad Babangida, son of former military president Ibrahim Babangida, as chairman of the Bank of Agriculture.
In a statement on Saturday, the interim National Publicity Secretary of the ADC, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi described the appointments as a ‘cynical attempt to buy back the goodwill the president spent the last year squandering’.
The former Minister of Youth Development, and later Sports claimed the government had sidelined the region for over 25 months and described the appointments as ‘too little, too late’.
The ADC spokesperson, who served in the same capacity for the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the early years of the Muhammadu Buhari administration, added that the Federal Government could not expect applause now ‘just because it suddenly remembered Nigeria is bigger than Lagos’.
He also said the recent appointments were nothing more than ‘political panic management’, in the face of ‘rising public anger and the growing strength of the opposition, especially in the North’.
According to him, ‘for over a year, this government looked away while bandits terrorised northern communities, farmers fled their lands, and rural economies collapsed under the impact of subsidy removal.
‘Now, with opposition coalitions gaining traction, President Tinubu suddenly remembers to appoint northerners into key positions’.
Abdullahi said that all major decisions of the President Tinubu administration — from petrol subsidy removal to political appointments — were made without input from the north.
He further said: ‘Now that the consequences of those decisions are glaring, the president is handing out appointments as if they are consolation prizes.
‘Northerners, as co-owners of this republic, will not be deceived by such tokenism. They can see through the President’s actions and recognise that symbolism is not governance’.
He asked President Tinubu to abandon what he called ‘Bourdillon-style appeasement politics’ and instead pursue genuine national inclusion.
‘You cannot patch a broken roof with press statements and photo-ops.
‘You certainly cannot restore public trust by pretending that appointments are a substitute for real commitment to nation-building’, Abdullahi.
