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Exclusive: APC governors kick as Buhari Chief of Staff takes over federal appointments

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9 years ago

April 28, 2017

Governors of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) rose from a meeting on Wednesday afternoon with a decision to protest to President Muhammad Buhari the takeover of Federal appointments by his Chief Of Staff (COS), Mr. Abbah Kyari.

Investigations by National Daily revealed that the APC governors, who met at the party’s secretariat on Blantyr Street, Wuse 2, Abuja, raised dusts over Mr. Kyari, takeover of all key appointments of the present administration without recourse to anybody in the party, especially the governors.

The COS, it was gathered, last week hurriedly directed the release of appointment letters of some newly appointed heads of Federal government agencies despite a directive by the Vice President Professor Yemi Osinbajo for a stay of action.

One of the governors, who spoke with National Daily, shortly after the meeting of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF), at the Banquet Hall, Presidential Villa, Abuja, said his colleagues were angry that those who didn’t work for the party are the ones allocating and taking all the juicy appointments. They accused Mr. Kyari of using his position to allocate all key appointments to his loyalists, stooges and highest bidders.

“We are certainly going to protest this to Mr. President. We met today and the issue of federal appointments and the lopsided way it is done is one of the main issues we discussed today. Mr. President has to do some about the way his COS Abbah Kyari has hijacked all political appointments. It is sad that even the Vice President is not in the know of most of these appointment. We want Mr. President to do something urgent before APC becomes a laughing stock,” he said pleading anonymity.

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The governor lamented “it is sad that Mr. President allowed things to degenerate to this level. This is the first time in the history of democracy in Nigeria that the governors are left out from federal appointments, where party leaders and major stakeholders are left out. If the party does not correct these anomalies, we won’t be able to go anywhere in 2019”.

Another governor who also expressed disappointment at the way things were been done in the government today, urged the president to investigate the role some of his key aides have played some embarrassing scandals in the last 20 months of the administration.

“We are happy with what Mr. President is doing with the case of the suspended Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Mr. Babachir Lawal, the Director General (DG) of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA). This action will reaffirm the faith of Nigerians in the Buhari government. What we want now is for the president to extend the probe to other areas suck h as the case of the MTN scandal, the alleged fraud in the allocation of oil licenses and allegations of fraud in some key ministries and agencies of government. If Mr. President does this, Nigerians will believe strongly that he is really determined to fight corruption. Anything else would be counterproductive,” the source stated.