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Buhari's appointment: When colouration seems to beget and agenda
 
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Sat, 29 Aug 2015   ||   Nigeria, Ibadan, Oyo State
 

Prior to the recent appointments confirmed by President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday, a good many were already enduring a prisoner’s dilemma as to the idiosyncratic demeanour of the president’s yet to be fully constituted cabinet.

Apart from the rumblings of discontent that trailed both the upper and lower chambers of the legislature in the selection of principal officers, there were already delicate cracks within the ruling party, courtesy of the seeming northern reclamation of power over stakeholders that constituted the southern alliance of the party.

From whichever facet, Thursday’s appointments are regionally insular enough to stoke embers of misgivings as to the trajectory of the President in reflecting the audacity of change which many yearned for, courtesy of his goodwill.

While the Special Media Adviser, Mr Femi Adesina has come out swiftly in defence of his boss, the odds have become palpable, following nine initial appointments out of which the defender himself was the only Southerner.

The nation, in the first place, is a fusion of inflected sub nations, coalesced by virtue of colonialism. Not minding the intended ambit of Buhari’s premature cabinet, the recent ratification is in defiance of a political maxim that puts democracy as the common factor.

Should President Buhari’s semblance be interpreted as an introverted preference for his clan of ethnic acquaintances and trusted gentiles, he might as well alter the political paradigm untimely and also reinforcing the mutual mistrust which a great chunk of the Niger Delta and Eastern regions had for the All Progressive Congress before the last general elections.

These latest appointments infer a covert out muscling of relevance between the two major blocs constituting the All Progressives Congress. Whether this however portends a rejigging of political alliances in the long run remains an untimely question. More fundamental in the evolving simultaneous equation of geopolitical spread is the need to define the essence of the conglomeration of progressives across board.

President Buhari’s hunched posture has done more damage than expected, giving room to relegated fronts that were hitherto deemed as parochial voices pursuing their own selfish interests. The Southern Nigeria Peoples Assembly seemed to have found an invigorated impetus to now launch a post-Jonathan campaign against the government of President Buhari.

The APC which ought to be the most formidable rampart behind the moves of the president expressed reservations about the president’s blithe disposition.

Coupling this with the party’s fettered joy about the composition of the upper and lower chambers of the legislature; the president might have psychically opened the portal for mutual mistrust within his own ranks and inadvertently deplete his party’s wherewithal especially before the volatile political disposition of the Southwest.

The ingenuity of any movement is bound to be initially perceived by its colouration and this, many believed Buhari ought to be well aware of.

Dredging down the memory lane, it would be recalled that the late Major Chukwuma 'Kaduna'Nzeogwu, for all his ingenuity fell on the wrong side of history not because the botched coup was ill-timed but largely owing to the colouration which many believed was sectional.

President Buhari’s clout would only be as efficient as the public acceptance it draws, first within the ranks of his party which would then engender the federal acceptance it imbues in the populace.

Nigerians are made to believe that the ball has not been set rolling since ministerial appointments are due for September. This first set of key appointments however, has shrouded the anticipated orchestration of certain policies which might bother on the interest of all geopolitical zones.

Thus, the President might as well ditch the idea of  asking Nigerians for a benefit of doubt as it has already been ceded.

 

 

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