Dr Femi Olufunmilade, a member of the Governing Council of the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, and a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has stated that President Muhammadu Buhari appointed some members who still owes allegiance to the PDP.
His comments came two weeks after Comptroller-General of Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) Hameed Ali declared that the Buhari administration was derailing because half of the appointees had their root in the PDP.
Olufunmilade, who chaired the Buhari Survey and Strategy Committee during the 2015 presidential campaign, wondered how someone like Senator Ndoma Egba, former Senate majority leader in PDP government, became NDDC chairman.
He also cited Minister of National Planning, Senator Udo Udoma, also a former PDP Senator.
In a chat with Sun, Olufunmilade lamented that some party members who stood by APC since formation were being sidelined.
He further stated that the issue was was generating serious internal wrangling in the APC.
His words: “As regards the issue of members of the party not being satisfied, I don’t think that is limited to the southwest. If it is an issue, it cuts across the entire country.
“I was privileged to coordinate a research to support his candidature in 2015, it was called Needs Assessment Survey of 36 States and the FCT, which he approved through his then chief of staff, Colonel Hameed Ali on the platform of Buhari Support Organization.
“Approval was conveyed to me by Dr Ibrahim Dauda, who gave the contacts of the BSO coordinators across the 36 states and the purpose of the research was to find out if beside the general items of the manifesto, the specific needs peculiar to the various states of the federation.
“At the end of the day, most of them have been sidelined in the way things are done in this government. Most of them have not been given any appointment. What is more annoying is that most of the appointments made in this administration went to the party that we fought to remove from power.
“A lot of their members are getting appointments while members of the APC are left behind. Some critical appointments were not only given to PDP members, they were given to those we defeated.
“I’ll give you examples: you look at the NDDC, Senator Ndoma Egba was the Senate majority leader for the PDP, I personally cannot place my finger on when he defected to APC before the election but today he is the chairman of the NDDC.
“You look at someone like the Minister of National Planning, Senator Udo Udoma, I don’t know if at anytime he formally moved into the APC, and so on and so forth.
“So if you find people aggrieved, you can’t blame them. It is not all about appointments, there are also many positions we thought would have been open to members of the party, but as we speak, they are still being held by PDP appointees in various MDAs.”
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