Presidency denies alleged 81 percent Buhari’s appointments in favour of North

The Presidency, yesterday, denied a media report, which claimed that 81 percent of President Muhammadu Buhari’s appointments have been in favour of the north.

A statement by the Special Adviser on Media and publicity, Femi Adesina, said the article originally published by a national newspaper on October 29, 2017, is either an ignorant effort or a mischievous attempt by the publication to mislead public and portray the Buhari administration in bad light.

He said what the newspaper did, essentially, was to put together a string of misleading statements across two pages of a newspaper.

“To push this biased reportage, which wrongly claimed that 81 of President Muhammadu Buhari’s 100 appointees are Northerners, the writer unilaterally selected 100 appointees to drive home the distraction presented as facts.”

“To claim, suggest or attempt to insinuate that the President’s appointments are tilted in favour of a section of the country is simply untrue and certainly uncharitable.

“First of all, the publication could not even cross the ‘t’s and dot the ‘i’s properly. For instance, the author wrongly named the Director-General, NISER, as Haruna Yerima, whereas the DG, NISER is actually Folarin Gbadebo-Smith.

“Why would a publication —- embark on such shoddiness, or are we to conclude this was calculated to create a particular perception?

“The article also wrongly named Tunde Irukera as Executive Secretary of CPP-whatever that is- instead of Consumer Protection Council (CPC). Rather conveniently, the publication ignored mentioning that Mr. Emeka Nwankpa is chairman of CPC. Not only that, the writer claimed that the Director-General of the Budget Office is Aliyu Gusau, whereas Mr. Ben Akabueze is the actual DG, Budget Office.”

“Besides, the publication made not just one, but several errors on names and positions, in what could be seen as a deliberate attempt to mislead the reading public, along the lines of some intended distortions of the truth.”