By Aduragbemi Omiyale
The Conference of Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP) has claimed that 80 per cent of the Ministers and appointees of President Muhammadu Buhari are grossly incompetent.
The group, which made this claim in a statement signed by its Secretary General, Mr Willy Ezugwu, on Tuesday, called for an overhaul of the cabinet and an injection of fresh hands.
“It is about time President Muhammadu Buhari overhauled his cabinet and injected fresh hands with new ideas into the federal cabinet to redeem his image within the remaining one year of his administration.
“By our several assessments, at least, 80 per cent of President Buhari’s ministers and appointees have proved to be grossly incompetent in the last seven years.
“Worse still, many of the appointees swim in unprecedented corruption that was unimaginable even in the years of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governments.
“President Buhari as a former Head of State could not afford about N53 million presidential nomination forms seven years ago and the ease with which virtually all his ministers bought the exorbitant presidential and governorship forms of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) should be the clearest signal that most of the presidential appointees have been corruptly enriching themselves.
“For us, the recent corruption case involving the country’s Accountant-General is one of the least among the appointees. And if a financial gatekeeper like the Accountant-General of the Federation can be involved in such a monumental fraud, then President Buhari’s administration has a lot of image redemption activities to carry out before 2023.
“This can be best achieved by the immediate replacement of most of the current ministers and appointees who have obviously not delivered meaningful democratic dividend since their appointment,” the CNPP stated.
Meanwhile, the group has applauded the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Godwin Emefiele, for withdrawing a suit he filed against the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Mr Abubakar Malami, over his alleged 2023 presidential ambition.
The central banker had approached the court to argue that the electoral body and the nation’s chief law officer do not have the right to stop him from becoming the president of Nigeria next year while still being in office as CBN governor.
After he could not submit his presidential forms procured for him from the APC, Mr Emefiele withdrew the suit from the court.
This action sweetened CNPP, which described it as “a step in the right direction,” commending the banker “for being a good listener and respecter of public opinion.”
In a statement signed by its Secretary General, Mr Willy Ezugwu, on Tuesday, the group also appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to sack “incompetent and corrupt Ministers” in his cabinet.
