May 29: FG, outgoing govs in last-minute N3.7tn contract bazaar, appointment spree
The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), some outgoing ministers and governors have embarked on last-minute appointments, investigations by Saturday PUNCH have revealed.
Our correspondents also observed that Buhari and his ministers awarded contracts worth over N3.7tn in the dying embers of his regime.
The appointments and contracts were awarded between March 20, 2023 and May 14, 2023 after the conduct of the presidential and governorship elections, which produced Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress as President-elect and a total of 28 governors out of which 16 newly elected governors will take over from their predecessors, who will complete their constitutionally approved second term in office.
However, some of the outgoing governors made last-minute appointments in the period under review.
On May 17, 2023 Buhari appointed Paul Harris Ogbole (SAN), former member of the Board of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and ex-Chairman, Otukpo Local Government Council of Benue State, as a member of the Council for Legal Education for a period of four years.
On May 11, the President approved the appointment of a retired Assistant Inspector General of Police, Garba Baba-Umar, as a Senior Security Adviser on International Police Cooperation and Counter-terrorism in the Office of the Minister of Police Affairs. According to a statement issued by the Presidency, the appointment was made to enable “Umar complete his nationally beneficial tenure as an executive member of the INTERPOL.”
Two days after, the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, announced the appointment of a Benue monarch as the Pro-chancellor of the Federal University, Otuoke, Bayelsa state.
Earlier on May 5, 2Buhari re-appointed the members of the Board of Trustees of the Nigeria Police Trust Fund.
On May 3, the President, in a letter addressed to the Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, asked the Senate to confirm the appointment of 12 nominees of the governing board of the North East Development Commission.
The day before, Buhari re-appointed Abike Dabiri-Erewa as the Chairman of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission. The President also asked the Senate for the confirmation of six federal commissioners for the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission on the same date.
The Minister of Environment, Muhammed Abdullahi, also announced the appointment of a new coordinator for the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project on May 2.
A month earlier, Buhari through the Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire, appointed a new director for the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Enugu.
He also re-appointed the Chief Executive Officer of the National Lottery Trust Fund, Bello Maigari, and the Director-General of the National Agency for the Control of AIDS, Dr Gambo Aliyu, on March 24, while a new DG for the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency was appointed on March 21.
In Kaduna State, the outgoing governor, Nasir El-Rufai, who will be succeeded by his party man, Uba Sani, appointed 15 new judges on April 25. The judges included seven state high court judges, five Sharia Court of Appeal judges and three Customary Court of Appeal judges. Punch
