Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said that President Muhammadu Buhari-led government ignored federal character in the appointment of the Nigeria's security chiefs.
Punch reports that he also berated the National Assembly and the Federal Character Commission for failing to check the excesses of the president in the uneven distribution of public offices.
Dr.Obasanjo said this on Thursday, February 1, at the secretariat of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Oke Ilewo area of Abeokuta, shortly after the Coalition for Nigeria Movement was inaugurated in Ogun state, and he was registered as a member of the movement.
The former President, who was flanked by a former military administrator of old Ondo state, Gen. Ekundayo Opaleye and a former minister of state for defence, Dupe Adelaja, said the ethos of nation building through eoven distribution of public offices had been abused.
He said: “Let me emphasise important areas, programmes, priorities or processes for improved attention. To start with, we seem to have taken nation building for granted. Nation building must be given continued attention to give every citizen a feeling of belonging and a stake in his or her country.
“For instance, the Federal Character principle, as espoused in our constitution, was to guide the leadership to search for competent holders of major offices to be distributed within the entire nation, and avoid concentration in a few ethnic hands or geographical places, as we currently have in the leadership of our security apparatus.
“To avoid such non-integrative situation, we have the National Assembly and the Federal Character Commission, both institutions which must raise the alarm or call for correction of actions by the executive that violates the spirit of our constitution.”
Obasanjo’s registration came almost 24 hours after the CNM was inaugurated in Abuja.
He arrived the venue at exactly 12.44pm in company with dignitaries sdgincluding former governors of Cross River and Osun states, Donald Duke and Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola.
The former president, while justifying the need for the CNM, argued that if all the instruments the country had used in the quest for nation building and governance since independence had failed, it was imperative to try new ways.
He said: “If what we have tried in the past has not taken us to the Promised Land, we have to try something else and something else is this grassroots popular movement built from the bottom-up to lead us, I hope and pray, to the Promised Land.”
He, however, warned that if the movement “decides to transform itself and go into partisan politics, I will cease to be a member.”
Obasanjo further said the spate of violence, and other forms of criminality had not received sufficient proactive ameliorative responses through transformational leadership.
He said the youth and women would be carried along, as “they must be part and parcel of governance in this country.”
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