Nigerians hail Buhari’s sacking moves

Less than two months into his administration, President Muhammadu Buhari appears to be on a mission to weed out every element considered inimical to the success of his government.

In what analysts describe as a government in haste to right the wrongs of the immediate past administration, Buhari has since embarked on a sacking spree of appointees of his predecessor.
Speaking with BD SUNDAY, a public affairs analyst said Buhari was right to have sacked those he believes may not work in the interest of his administration.

“I don’t see anything wrong with the sacks. If the desired change must come, there’s the need to clean the Augean stable. And there’s no other way to do it than to weed off some elements that could constitute a mole in the system if left untouched. Don’t forget that there were those who were overtly partisan during the last election, who showed inclination towards the then ruling party, even though by nature of their jobs they were supposed to be neutral and apolitical,” the observer said.

According to him, “Some of them also did not only move money and materials in support of the past administration, their utterances before and during the elections were very caustic and engendered hate in the polity. So, for Buhari to move forward, he has to remove all those ‘road blocks’ and impediments as we may call them, and put those that he has confidence in that they will share in his dream of rebuilding the country.”

Maina Dilli from Adamawa State explained that sacking of non-performing public office holders is not new, but a practice that is as old as humanity. He however, urged the Federal Government not to waste its precious time persecuting officers inherited from past administration, unless, there is clear evidence of corruption and unpatriotic deals by such officers.

“I think Muhammadu Buhari should stop at sacking; many Nigerians I think will really understand at that level; but any act that may be considered as persecution may not augur well for the government and the APC as a party. We all know that every appointee will naturally do everything possible to please their benefactors. Those who served in the Jonathan administration must have gone beyond their briefs to please him; we are not likely going to see anything different from that (can I call it, eye service), in the present administration. We saw what Al-Mustapha did under the late General Sani Abacha; going beyond his brief to terrorise his superiors just to please his boss. The situation is still the same today in many respects. For me, I would want the Buhari administration to only prosecute those who are found to have misused their positions to defraud the country and to live above their legitimate incomes.”

A lady entrepreneur who gave her name simply as Paulina tasked Buhari on fair-play.

“Buhari appears to be an angry man. But he said he would not witch-hunt political opponents. Let him first deliver on that that promise,” Paulina said.

It would be recalled that while inaugurating a 19-member transition committee in Abuja, Buhari had charged the members not to engage in a witch-hunt or fault-finding exercise because government exists as a continuum.

While some critics say the recent sacks bear a semblance of witch-hunt, some others believe they were purely part of the transition.

Recall that President Buhari sacked a number of appointees he inherited from Jonathan.

Last Thursday, for instance, the President sacked Patrick Akpobolokemi as director-general of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA).

The former NIMASA boss had a frosty relationship with the All Progressives Congress (APC) during the election period. Akpobolokemi at that time was accused by the APC of sponsoring hate campaign against Buhari in the run up to the March 28 presidential election.

Buhari had earlier sacked the board of the National Petroleum Co-operation (NNPC).

The administration believes that the NNPC is riddled with corruption by oil cabals who had held the nation to ransom. The step by the Federal Government may have synchronised with the claim by the APC that government aimed at restructuring the oil company.

He also sacked Ita Ekpenyong, the director-general of the State Security Service.

Pundits say that Ekpenyong’s sack may not be unconnected with the alleged roles played by the SSS under his watch. According to them, the SSS became openly partisan, especially in the run-up to the 2015 general elections. The agency, it was believed, occupied itself with harassing and arresting opposition figures, ransacking firms and offices with ties to the APC.

On July 25, 2014, operatives of the SSS descended on the corporate headquarters of TNS-RMS, a Lagos-based research agency, holding its staff hostage, ransacking its offices and premises and whisking away three of its personnel.

On November 21, 2014, the agency raided the APC data centre in Lagos, arresting its staffers and accusing the party of “cloning INEC Permanent Voters Card with the intention of hacking into INEC data base, corrupting it and replacing them with their own data”. The SSS is yet to prove that allegation till date.

The SSS also consistently disparaged the APC in the media, accusing the party and its leaders of being behind the deadly Boko Haram insurgency.

And after the Osun election, the agency’s spokesperson, Marilyn Ogar, rushed to the media, claiming that some opposition APC politicians offered the Service’s personnel N14 million bribe.

The SSS is yet to substantiate that allegation and no one has been charged to court for bribery.

Others who have lost their jobs in what observers termed as an attempt to “remove all impediments” to the realisation of the change project, are service chiefs who presided over the general election. They are Alex Badeh, chief of defence staff; Kenneth Minimah, chief of Army Staff; Usman Jibrin, chief of Naval Staff, and Adesola Amosun, chief of Air Staff.

Sambo Dasuki, a colonel, who was sacked alongside the service chiefs, at the time of going to press, was being held under house arrest; a development the PDP described as illegal and unlawful.

 

Zebulon Agomuo