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Few days after South East senators raised an alarm over perceived marginalization of their zone in federal appointments, the Progressive People's Alliance (PPA) has accused President Umaru Yar'Adua of lopsidedness in the appointments.
You're unfair to S'East in appointments, PPA tells Yar'Adua
Few days after South East senators raised an alarm over perceived marginalization of their zone in federal appointments, the Progressive People's Alliance (PPA) has accused President Umaru Yar'Adua of lopsidedness in the appointments.
In a statement by the National Publicity Secretary, Chief Ben Onyechere, the PPA said there is deliberate attempt to exclude the South-East from the Federal Government.
Citing the retirement of Mrs. Ebele Okeke, the PPA wondered why the Federal Government did not replace her with another person from the South-East instead of another geopolitical zone.
The party said that the Yar'Adua government has set a pattern in appointments, adding that influential positions are either given to people from the North or South-South.
It said that the refusal to appoint a South easterner as the Inspector General of Police, when he was the next in command to the former police boss, was part of the plot to ensure that no Igbo occupies sensitive position in the current government. It said that the South-East has never had it so bad, even during the Olusegun Obasanjo government.
The PPA said that Yar'Adua wants to use the government of national unity to gain stability, accusing him of planning to remove members as other parties serving as ministers as soon as the presidential election petition was decided at the Supreme Court.
The statement said: 'The retirement of Mrs. Ebele Okeke and her replacement with Ama Pepple is not agreeable in any sense of equity and justice. PPA is very disturbed that the South East is totally short changed in the manner of appointment going on in Yar'Adua's administration . If somebody at that level was retired from such a position it is only justifiable that her replacement should come from South-East and no where else considering the fact that South-East is not occupying any major position in the government of today and even in the Legislature.
'What is wrong in appointing somebody from South-East to head customs or to be SGF or head of service, not to talk about other key functionaries at the Executive arm? Why must the North continue to produce the head of customs, and this is just one example out of many? Another example is that in the Aso-Rock villa the North holds sway in all the positions. It is with keen interest that one is observing the lopsidedness in the government whereby positions are being shared between Yar'Adua and his deputy.
'Nobody has any reason why a South easterner was denied the position of Inspector General of Police. The Nigerian polity has advanced so high that nobody should dream of taking others for granted. The so-called South-East leaders are very complacent because they have been privately settled, but the fact remains that the lack of sincerity in distribution of key position is the bane of real and sincere unity and growth of democracy in this nation.
'We are not here talking of Government of National Unity because already it is well known that the PDP intends to use the coalition to derive majority support in its days of trial after which the PDP will drop the coalition arrangement as signs abound in its stinginess with respect to appointments. The inequity in distribution of appointments, even within the PDP, is alarmingly curious, whereby some regions are cheated, not taking into cognisance that Nigeria is meant for Nigerians and winner must not take all. The system of appointments in Yar'Adua's government portrays Chief Olusegun Obasanjo in a better image."