President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is about done with a larger percentage of juicy appointments in his Government.
So far, he has appointed most of his Kitchen Cabinet, personal Aides, Security Chiefs, Exertive personel and heads of crucial parastatals.
So far, it appears like the president concentrated a large chunk of critical appointments in the Southern part of the Country, most especially, the South West states.
The Chief of staff to the president, CBN Governor, Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Services, Ministers of Finance, Power, Attorney general of the Federation amongst others are concentrated in the South West states to the exclusion of the Hon Attorney general who himself is also from the Yoruba speaking state of Kwara.
My concern is not too much about the concentration or none of it of this perceived juicy appointments.
My problem is with the process that threw up the individuals who now occupies this position on behalf of the South West and the platform upon which the president was elected into office, the APC.
It is fast becoming the norm for successive Governments to get into power and began to give appointments to individuals who contributed practically nothing to the success of the party in the guise of “experts” and “technocracy” but the volume of such brazen disregard for the party structures in favour of the new trend is alarming in this Administration.
Lagos and Ogun states enjoyed the Lion share of this juice appointments.
The Chief of staff to the president, Femi Gbajabiamila, the Finance Minister, Wale Edun, Governor of the CBN, Cardozo, Mr. Dele Alake of Solid Minerals and even Zach Adelabu, the newly appointed Chairman of FIRS are known “Lagos or Bourdillon” Boys as they’re fondly called.
Though most of them with the exception of Gbajabiamila who is known to be from Lagos were appointed to fill the slots of their respective states, their appointments, to be honest is to their individual benefits and to the sole descretion of the president and to the detriment of the states which slots they were made to fill.
Politics is said to be local. In other words, to be a successful politician, you must be relevant and active in your base.
Can we say that the aforementioned individuals, with due respect to them, were politically relevant in the politics of Ogun, Oyo, Ondo and Ekiti which slots they occupy currently?
The answer obviously is a capital NO!
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has busied himself building a Government of his liking.
The question is, what is the effect of his style of making crucial appointments on the APC platforms and structures on the respective states where the individuals he is determined to favour from such states?
While the president might be building a veritable Government, he has consistently continued to weaken the structures of the APC in the South West, perhaps inadvertently.
The continuous snubbing of the party structures in the states is a wind that might blow no one any good.
I have severally searched up the correct meaning of the word “technocracy” and there is something alarming in the meaning of the word.
According to google, technocracy is defined as the government or control of society or industry by a group of technical experts.
What struck me from the above definition are the words “control and group of technical experts”.
The word control, according to google is described as the power to influence or direct people’s behavior or the course of events.
Will it not now be safe that the technical experts have gained the power to influence the course of events in this Government which we all labored to put in place?
The funny thing is that this technocrats are always paper weights in practical politics.
Unfortunately, immediately the politicians did all the job and sacrifice, then the technocrats step in to take control.
If there is no Government to form, how will the technocrats bring their so called expertise to play?
It is not proper and indeed ungodly that the politicians will cook the soup only for the technocrats who perhaps were in their offices under the Air conditioner while the soup is been cooked to eat the Lions share.
President Tinubu will do himself and the APC some good if he jettison the ideas of giving his party the short end of the stick moving forward.
SOLA ABEGUNDE.
