1/ NO TO EXTENSION/REAPPOINTMENT OF TENURE OF SECRETARY TO Federal Character Commission
Last year I opposed the appointment of the Chairman of Federal Character Commission for violation of Federal Character Principle. I implored Senate not to clear the Chairman for that reason
2/ I believe the Senate has not kept to the spirit and letter of the federal character law which they enacted in the discharge of their statutory role. They have allowed the Executive led by President Buhari to damage the tie that bind us as a nation.
3/ This willful disobedience of our laws and national consensus would have disastrous consequences in the future.

During the Senate clearing hearings a strong argument and appeal was made in favour of clearing the Chairman who is from the North.
4/ My opposition was on the ground that the Chairman should come from the South since the Secretary to the commission, is from the North. Those two positions were, historically and in compliance with the federal character law, shared between the North and the South.
5/ The logic of the appeal at the Senate during the clearing, was that the Secretary to the Commission has few months to complete his tenure. His exit will now bring a Southerner as Secretary.

This seemingly plausible argument was bought Senators and they cleared the Chairman.
6/ The problem now is that the Secretary Mohammed Bello Tukur, whose tenure ends on April, 7, 2021 is now lobbying for extension of his tenure
There are strong rumors he may have been granted another term. This would be wrong and flagrant abuse and disobedience of the FCC Law.
7/If we are to follow the federal character principle, the President should appoint a South Easterner as the Secretary of the Commission.

The last two southerners to hold that position were from the South South and South West.
8/ The reason why I labour to remind everybody about our Federal character law is that it is one of the major consensus of our political leaders to give every Nigerian a sense of belonging in our march to nationhood.
9/ Federal character does not exclude merit. It is a nation building strategy that should take the best from every zone to create a pan Nigerian outlook in our public institutions. Someday we will out grow the need for zoning and federal character but for now we should respect it
10/ Like the great Zik of Africa said "No condition is permanent."

Interestingly no Southerner had headed the Commission since it's creation as both Obasanjo and Goodluck appointed Northerners as Chairmen.

Diversity works. If we don't deliberately pursue inclusion we lose

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More from @osita_chidoka

12 Mar
1. @nnamexi thats another topic for another day but in summary it is the problem of an incompetent, I'll equipped and nepotism riddled bureaucracy. Our civil servants are supposed to be the stewards of national plans but they have turned to distributors of our national patrimony.
2. We need to rebuild our public institutions by
A. Developing open and transparent recruitment process
B. Observe Federal character at recruitment with the best from each state and merit for promotion
C. Use jamb for promotion exams to improve credibility
D. Training.. Training
3/ E. Build civil service Academies for all grades to instil basic skill, doctrine & national philosphy

F. Discontinue the Administrative Cadre. Stop the movement across ministries (we can adopt short rotations) staff should start and end in one ministry for institutional memory
Read 5 tweets
12 Mar
@eyooekpo your observation is germane. My point is: what is the value of a standard guage rail from Lagos to Niger Republic when we can re build the narrow gauge and use the funds better on our roads?

The lag to Kano rail will cost $11.1bn to carry how many containers/goods?
2. Our highest container throughput was 1.7m in 2012, 2020 was about 1.3m. Lets take an average of 1.5 per annum growing 10% yearly will it justify $11bn dollars? We are assuming all the cargo are going to Kano if we are realistic then only about 25% may need to go up north
3. To pay back $11bn (4.4 trillion at N400) in 30 years with NO INTEREST will require about 146bn naira annually and 401m daily from passenger and cargo. I may be totally wrong but I doubt we have the numbers and capacity for such revenues.
Read 9 tweets
25 Jun 20
Today, the All Progressives Congress National Working Committee organized a strange meeting in a strange location, Federal Executive Council Chamber and took a strange decision not known to the APC constitution to wit: dissolution of NWC.
The Party also set up a strange body called a caretaker committee sworn in by a strange person, Attorney General of the federation who by APC constitution is not allowed to hold a Party position.
The APC constitution provides in Article 18(iv) "No officer in any organ of the Party shall hold executive position office in government concurrently."

Interestingly the word dissolution is not in the APC constitution so the action of dissolution is unlawful and illegal.
Read 10 tweets
14 Apr 20
As Dr Fauci said we have a peculiar virus which spreads without physical contact with an infected person, it also spreads from asymptomatic persons, it spreads through surfaces & can survive for hours if not days in good environment

Good news is it can ‘die’ from soap and water
Now we don’t know enough about the virus to talk about local strategies. Does it reinfect those previously infected? Can we develop herd immunity? How do we manage symptoms at scale if the virus new cases keep rising?

Hence the challenge of Nigeria talking about local content
Local content is possible where local capacity exist, for malaria and HIV and indeed all infectious diseases we depend on donor funding for large scale survey.

So we have no local capacity to develop local strategy and models.
Read 10 tweets
22 Oct 19
Some plagiarist masquerading as Odumegwu Ojukwu asked who visited Pres. Buhari before projects were executed in the South East. Ordinarily I will not respond to a pseudo account. I respond to human beings whose manhood are alive but Nzeogwu & Ifeajuna asked me to say a few words
In 2015 as President Elect Igbo elders visited Buhari and begged him not to neglect the zone in appointments and projects though the zone did not vote for him. He promised them Igbos will not be neglected. He appointed Igbos massively!
thenigerianvoice.com/news/177915/wh…
In 2017 Igbo leaders came knocking again. They begged him to reconsider his position on appointments and projects particularly 2nd Niger bridge which was stalled in 2015 after GEJ had paid N40bn for the early works through the SWF and work has started
vanguardngr.com/2017/10/update…
Read 31 tweets
3 Oct 19
“If Nigeria was the way it was on May 28 1999”
Let us remind ourselves how Nigéria was as at 1999. Just so we do not forget; Nigeria was a pariah state lucky to have survived as one indivisible sovereign, especially in the context of the struggle by NADECO, death of MKO
2. As at 1999, On corruption, Transparency International scored Nigeria 1.6 out of 10 and ranked 98 out of 99 countries in 1999.

Nigeria was listed among four countries that were non-compliant on the anti-money laundering rules by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
3. As at 1999 our London and Paris Club burden was about $36bn. We could not service our external debt and relied on stressful rescheduling, with all the conditionalities.

By 2001, the debt stock as percentages of total export and GNP was 14% and 83% respectively
Read 17 tweets

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