Human rights campaigner Prof Isiaq Akintola has accused President Bola Tinubu of tribal and religious nepotism in the appointments he has made so far since assuming office as President in May.
Prof. Akintola is the Executive Director of The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC).
In a statement he released on Monday on behalf of MURIC, Akintola said key positions in the president’s appointment so far tended to favour the president’s Yoruba ethnic tribe and Christian adherents
Mr Tinubu himself and his vice president, Kashim Shettima are both Muslims, in an unusual Muslim-Muslim presidential pairing which received heavy backlash from Christian voters during the February presidential election. Tinubu’s wife, Pastor (Mrs) Oluremi Tinubu, however, is a Christian.
Atkintola said his organization was “shocked to our marrows that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been appointing Christians and Yorubas mainly to key positions since the inception of this administration”, and he cited an example that “five out of eight security chiefs appointed earlier are Christians. Ministerial posts have not been different”.
The prof said it seemed the president appointed only his tribesmen into his economic management team, “Minister of Finance, Wale Edun, the newly nominated CBN Governor, Dr. Michael Cardoso, Hon. Zacch Adedeji, Acting Chairman, FIRS, the Chairman, Tax Reforms Committee, Mr Taiwo Oyedele and Mr Tope Fasua, Special Adviser on Economic Affairs.”
He warned the president that “This regime must be wary of allegations of nepotism which the previous regime was accused of Nigeria is a vast country with talented men and women in all nooks and crannies” and that “the cacophony of voices of dissatisfied Muslims has reached an unbearable crescendo such that MURIC is now constrained to speak up“.
Nigeria’s law requires that each of the 36 states of Nigeria must have a ministerial representative in the government’s cabinet, but, Tinubu who ran his campaign on a “Yoruba lekan” (It’s the turn of Yorubas) slogan has had more appointments from his ethnic group.
The previous regime of President Buhari faced similar criticisms, with his appointments then favouring his fellow Muslim northerners.
Nigeria is roughly divided equally between mainly northern Muslims and southern Christians and is a complex matrix of geo-tribal configuration of about 350 tribes of disparate populations and strengths.
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