A People’s Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain in Delta State, Chief Sunny Onuesoke, has queried President Muhammadu Buhari on why a southerner cannot head the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC).
He said the continuous appointment of Northerners as chairman of the Nigeria anti-graft agency was against the Federal Character policy and made it look exclusive to only northerners.
The former governorship aspirant, while fielding questions from our Correspondent in Warri, on Thursday, said the recent travail of suspended EFCC Chairman, Mr Ibrahim Magu and his replacement with another Northerner, Mohammed Umar, made it look like there’s a law mandating only northerners to occupy the EFCC top job.
“Is there any law that says EFCC chairmen can only come from the North? Magu goes and he is replaced with another Northerner, Mohammed Umar.
“There have now been five chairmen. Each has been a Northern Muslim. What‘s happening? Are there no credible Southerners?,” Onuesoke queried.
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He described such an arrangement as awkward and abnormal since Nigeria has people from other tribes who are also qualified and capable of heading the EFCC and doing a creditable job.
Onuesoke argued that the appointment of only northerners to head sensitive and important government agencies, such as EFCC, was not good for a multiethnic and multi-religious country like Nigeria.
He, therefore, advised President Buhari to make a difference, this time around, by appointing a Southerner as head of the anti-graft agency, should Ibrahim Magu fail to return as the chairman of EFCC.
“If Buhari takes to my advice, he will win the heart of Nigerians and he will go into archives of Nigeria as the only leader who appointed a Southerner as head of EFCC despite that he is from the Northern part of the country,” he stated.
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