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EFCC chair, 24-year-old FERMA boss, other Tinubu’s appointments that generated controversy
The past four months of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in office have witnessed a sequence of appointments amid high expectations from the over 200 million Nigerians seeking solutions to the myriad of challenges stifling the country’s development.
So far, Tinubu has appointed 47 ministers and a number of special advisers, board chairs and heads of agencies to help in driving his Renewed Hope agenda.
While many of the president’s appointments have been applauded, some have stirred controversy either as a result of the appointees’ qualifications or the perception people have of them. Daily Trust examines five of such appointments and the differing conversations around them.
Olukoyede’s appointment as EFCC chair
Tinubu on Thursday appointed Ola Olukoyede as Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to replace Abdulrasheed Bawa who was suspended indefinitely “to allow for proper investigation into his conduct while in office.”
However, Olukoyede’s appointment has generated intense discussions, particularly among legal practitioners, who are divided over whether he met the requirements for the position as stipulated by the EFCC Act.
The act provides that the person to be appointed as EFCC chairman must be a serving or retired member of any security or law enforcement agency, have 15 years cognate experience and must not be below the rank of Assistant Commissioner of Police or its equivalent.
Daniel Bwala, an Abuja-based lawyer and aide to Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), described the appointment as “unlawful and illegal”, noting that “it runs foul of the provisions of Section 2 of the EFCC Act.
“This is the point; there is a baseline. The baseline is that the person must come from a security or law enforcement agency of the government, the reference is the government, not the private sector.”
But Monday Ubani, a former Chairman of the Section of Public Interest and Development Law (SPIDEL) of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), faulted Bwala’s stance, insisting that Olukoyede was qualified for the position.
Ubani said, “A lawyer for 22 years and having worked either five or six years in a law enforcement agency has garnered that ‘cognate experience’ we are talking about since the act itself is not specific.”
Protest against NIPOST CEO’s appointment
Also, the appointment of a new Chief Executive Officer/Post Master General of the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST), Tola Odeyemi, on Friday was greeted by the workers’ rejection.
NIPOST, in a now-deleted tweet on X (formerly Twitter) claimed the outgone CEO, Mr Adeyemi Adepoju, had been reinstated, disregarding the announcement made by the president’s spokesperson, Chief Ajuri Ngelale.
On Monday, the workers shut down the head office of the service in Abuja in protest against Odeyemi’s appointment.
24-year-old FERMA boss
Not a few Nigerians raised an eyebrow on Friday when 24-year-old Imam Ibrahim Kashim Imam was appointed as board Chairman of the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA).
Imam, a first-class graduate of mechanical engineering from Brighton University, United Kingdom, completed the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme in August, 2022.
While some hailed the president for appointing the young Imam, others criticised the appointment on the grounds that the son of a popular Borno politician, Kashim Ibrahim-Imam, lacked the experience to manage FERMA.
“Appointing a fresh graduate with no work experience to such a high position is absolutely ill-advised,” @Haslawal87 wrote on X.
But some social media users believe the young man will learn on the job.
Alake’s appointment as solid minerals minister
When President Tinubu, in August, assigned the Ministry of Solid Minerals Development to his ally and former Lagos State Commissioner for Information, Mr Dele Alake, there were calls in some quarters that a ministry with potential to revive Nigeria’s economy should have been headed by an expert with cognate experience and not Alake whose career had largely revolved around information management.
Responding to the critics, Alake explained that his sense of responsibility, expertise and track record informed Tinubu’s decision.
Musawa’s NYSC certificate
The appointment of Mrs Hannatu Musawa as Minister of Arts, Culture and Creative Economy while she was still undergoing the mandatory one-year National Youth Service (NYSC) scheme was also a subject of controversy.
The Director, Press and Public Relations of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Eddy Megwa, described Musawa’s occupation of public office while still serving as a breach of the NYSC Act.
He said Musawa was originally mobilised in 2001 for the youth service and deployed to Ebonyi State where she had her orientation programme but later relocated to Kaduna State to continue the programme.
Megwa added that she absconded and did not complete the programme when she got to Kaduna.
Femi Falana (SAN), in a statement titled: “A Youth Corps Member is not Competent to be a Minister in Nigeria,” said that it was a violation of the law for anybody to accept a ministerial appointment while serving in the NYSC.
However, Barrister Adebayo Shittu, a former Minister of Communication and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), in an interview on Trust TV’s Daily Politics programme, said the 1999 constitution did not make it mandatory that for anybody to hold public office he/she must have NYSC discharge certificate.
