Comparing Buhari and Jonathan’s first appointments

Many Nigerians are outraged over Buhari seeming appointment of only northerners, but how does Buhari compare with his predecessor over

their first appointments.

Those first appointed under Goodluck Ebele Jonathan are:

Dr. Reuben Abati as Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity.

Mike A. Oghiadomhe, CFR (Chief of Staff to the President)

Engr. Mohammed Kachalla Abubakar, mni (Deputy Chief of Staff to the President)

Amb. Hassan Tukur (Principal Secretary to the President)

Prof. Abubakar Sambo (Special Adviser to the President on Energy)

Mrs. Sarah Akuben Pane (Special Adviser to the President on Social Development

Dr. Tunji Olagunju (Special Adviser to the President on NEPAD)

Mrs. Sarah Jibril (Special Adviser to the President on Ethics and Values)

Mr. Oronto Douglas (Special Adviser to the President on Research and Strategy)

Senator Joy Emordi (Special Adviser to the President on National Assembly Matters).

Hon. Kingsley Kuku (Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta Affairs)

Dr. Pius Olakunle Osunyikanmi (Special Adviser to the President on International Relations

Prof. Dan Adebiyi (Special Adviser to the President on Special Duties)

Mrs. Asma’u Abdulkadir (Special Adviser to the President on Gender Issues)

Nze Sullivan Akachukwu Nwakpo (Special Adviser to the President on Technical Matters)

Yakubu Abdullahi (Special Adviser to the President on Political Matters (Office of theVice President)

Barr. Bashir Sufyan (Special Adviser to the President on Legal Matters (Office of the Vice President)

Senator Isaiah Ballat (Special Adviser to the President for Special Duties (Office of the Vice President). 

10 Southerners against 8 northerners 

Those first appointed under Muhammadu Buhari are:

Babachir David Lawal from Adamawa State as the Secretary to the Government of the Federation.  

Mr. Abba Kyari from Borno state as his Chief of Staff.  

Col. Hameed Ibrahim Ali (retd.) as the new Comptroller-General, Nigerian Customs Service

Mr. Kure Martin Abeshi, Comptroller-General, Nigerian Immigration Service

Senator Ita Enang, Senior Special Assistant on National Assembly Matters (Senate)

Suleiman Kawu as SSA on National Assembly Matters (House of Representatives).  

Both Ali and Kawu are from Kano State and Abeshi is from Nasarawa. Enang from Akwa Ibom State is the only one from the south geo-political zone.

Other northerners in Buhari’s first appointments are:

Director-General of the State Services, Lawal Daura

Acting Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Mrs. Amina Zakari

Director, Department of Petroleum Resources, Mr. Mordecai Danteni Baba Ladan

Accountant-General of the Federation, Alhaji Ahmed Idris.

The President’s Chief Security Officer, Abdulrahman Mani

State Chief of Protocol, Mallam Abdullahi Kazaure

Aide- De-Camp, Lt. Col. Muhammed Abubakar

Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu.  

Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, alone hailed from Osun Staten in the South-West.

Acting Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Mr. Babatunde Fowler, is also from SW

13 Northerners against 3 southerners

Fejiro Oliver wrote: COMPARING BUHARI’S FIRST APPOINTMENT WITH JONATHAN’S FIRST APPOINTMENT – When we shout that President Buhari is going to throw us into national crisis, the Buharists who feel they own PMB more than us throw before our face some appointment which President Jonathan made which he also gave to the North.: Of all these position, the Principal Secretary, Hassan Tukur was literally the most powerful, even more than the Chief of Staff. I will bring out other list made by Jonathan and how he made almost all defence and security chiefs to be Northerners, so much that the Igbos threw a party when he appointed Ihejirika as COAS. Why Buhari’s first appointment is tribalistic is what we are ye to fathom, but as always… ‪#‎WeNeedToKnow‬

Abiola Kahdijat wrote –  [Him] Buhari will make it up in his ministerial list [Me] who do you think you’re deceiving? President Buhari is COMPELLED by the constitution to pick his ministers from every state of the federation. So as it is now, picking ministers from SW, SS, & especially SE can’t be said to be Buhari wish. The appointments made so far show President Buhari wish and it is clearly a Northern agenda!

Festus keyamo wrote:  The so-called ‘uproar’ over the perceived ‘lopsided’ appointments made so far by President Buhari is nothing but an orchestrated frustration of a few jobless politicians who depend only on government appointments as their means of livelihood and, of course, the noise of the latest opposition party in town. The majority of Nigerians want to see good governance, pure and simple, and care less about the ethnic origin of those appointed into positions. My worry is that the decade-long general division of government positions into ‘juicy’ and ‘non-juicy’, and the mentality that these few ‘juicy’ positions must be shared equally amongst the major ethnic groups was nothing but a contraption of the old order from which we have just liberated ourselves. To my mind, all government appointments pose an equal challenge to those appointed as a call to higher service of fatherland. All public positions come with an equal responsibility to be honest, forthright and dedicated. To go further to classify them as ‘juicy’ or ‘non-juicy is just a euphemism for positions that have enough money from which to steal and those that are ‘dry’. Therefore, any agitation from a section of the country to get ‘juicy’ positions is only an agitation for their kinsmen to be appointed to steal enough from which they would benefit. I therefore unreservedly condemn, in the strongest of terms, the so-called ‘uproar’ about ‘juicy positions’ going only to a certain section of this country. All sections of this country should be happy and content with whatever positions that the President deems fit, at the end of the day, to give to their kinsmen. After all, the President still has a long way to go with appointments. He has not even filled up to five percent of available positions. Please, let the President be.

Written By Ogbuefi Ndigbo