Anxiety in APC over appointment of board members.

• Party nominates 2,035 members for consideration

There is high apprehension in the All Progressives Congress (APC) as members of the party await the release of appointments into the boards of federal agencies and parastatals, as well as appointments for chief executives of these agencies.

Already, names of 1,850 party members in 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have been submitted for consideration as members of boards of agencies, parastatals and commissions of the Federal Government.

Also, names of 185 APC members have been submitted to President Muhammadu Buhari for appointments as heads of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA) of government.

Members of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the APC are also awaiting the announcement. Some of the NWC members have been pencilled for board and ambassadorial appointments. APC National Chairman, Chief John Odigie- Oyegun, is expected to be sent on diplomatic mission as ambassador.

Other NWC members expected to be given board and diplomatic appointments are: Deputy National Chairman (South), Engr. Segun Oni; National Secretary, Alhaji Mai Mala Buni; National Organising Secretary, Senator Osita Izunaso; National Legal Adviser, Dr. Muiz Banire (SAN); and Deputy National Chairman (North), Senator Lawal Shuaibu, among others.

The appointments are being expected barely one year after the party took over the reins of governance and several months after Buhari dissolved all the boards and relieved the heads of some of these organisations of their duties.

The leadership of the APC had earlier accused the heads of parastatals and agencies appointed by the previous administration of sabotaging the efforts of the present government.

Leaders of the party had expected an immediate replacement of the sacked chief executives, but the Presidency appeared not in a hurry to fill those vacancies. As a prelude to making new appointments, the Presidency had directed each state chapter of the party to submit 50 names for board appointments and five names for the position of chief executives in these agencies and parastatals.

Those nominated would have to jostle for the headship of organisations such as Petroleum Products Price Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), National Orientation Agency (NOA), News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Petroleum Technology Development Agency (PTDF), Petroleum Equalisation Fund (PEF), Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) and the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), among others. 

 Inner room  learnt that it was the contest among party leaders to have their choice candidates nominated for these positions that led to the current crisis in Bayelsa State.

The leadership of the party in the state had accused the party’s governorship candidate in the last election, Chief Timipre Sylva, of filling all the five slots with his cronies.

The perceived delay in making fresh appointments was a major agenda during the last National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the party. Members had expressed concerns that they have not been appointed into these vacant positions after they worked for the party to secure victory at the 2015 general elections.

In response to these  complaints, Buhari apologised to them and explained that the delay was due to the restructuring of the MDAs and the need to streamline the various positions. “For the party, I will like you to continue to make sacrifice.

I know you are being harassed since the election that they haven’t seen anything on the ground. When we came in after 16 years of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), we met 42 ministries.

We reduced them to 24, removed 21 Permanent Secretaries. Having cut 42 to 24, correspondingly, the parastatals will be cut down to some size and realigned and the boards reconstituted.

So, please, try to bear with us as we reflect on where we found ourselves,” Buhari said at the meeting. However, a chieftain of APC who prefer to remain anonymous said that the delay in appointing party faithful into positions was very worrisome and has impacted negatively on both the members and the party. “For close to one year now, we are in government, but we are not in governance.

All these people that they are catching for stealing money, they are still the same set of people who are in the system, covering their people who have left.“There are people who worked for the success of the APC.

It is not only Buhari that won the election; he was just an individual. It could have been anybody; it could have been Rabiu Kwakwanso; it could have been Atiku Abubakar.

People must be worried going to one year now and you know that in politicking all over the world, if it is a term of four years, you know you have barely two active years and one year is gone now.

“So, I think people should be worried that Mr. President should release these appointments and, as you know in economics, there is what is called trickling down effect.

I am quite sure that everybody who is a member of this party should be worried over the delay in the appointments and those that will tell you that they are not worried are those who are ministers and what is the percentage? “We have today over 160 ambassadorial positions that are vacant.

That means that every state in the country would have a minimum of three ambassadors. If you have these ambassadors, they would be leaders of the party in their states. So, people are becoming disenchanted,” he said.

However, another chieftain of the party expressed a different opinion and explained that a number of factors were responsible for the delay in the appointments. Some of these factors, he said, have to do with the delay in the passage of the budget.

According to him, it would be wrong for the Presidency to make appointments and to continue to pay salaries without concluding the process of the 2016 budget. He also explained that the proposed merger or scrapping of some agencies was also partly responsible for the delayed appointments.

“I appreciate the feelings of my colleagues in the party, but what I have to say is that they should have more patience with the president. Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well,” he said.

It was learnt that the meeting of the ruling party’s G-19 leaders, hosted by Buhari last Wednesday night at the presidential villa, Abuja, centred on pending political appointments, especially those of chairmen of boards of federal parastatals.

Although the agenda of the meeting was not disclosed, our correspondents scooped that the reconstitution of the APC’s Board of Trustees (BoT) may have been discussed.