Former Special Assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan on New Media,
Reno Omokri on Tuesday made a case for Buhari over the president’s
alleged lopsided appointments saying appointments should be made on
merit and not sectional interests.
Omokiri made the statement in his article titled As Buhari blazes the trail for merit.
Read his full article
Recently
there was a big uproar about the appointments made by President Buhari.
I disagreed with those who complained that the President’s appointment
were lopsided.
Appointments should not be made on the basis of ethnicity, region or religion.Appointments should be made strictly on merit!
As
far as I am concerned, the President can appoint all his appointees
from the same state as long as they are the best Nigeria has to offer.
In 2013, Nigeria won the Africa Cup of Nations. That victory was only possible because we selected our best players.
A
large proportion of the squad were from the Southeast and Southsouth
including Vincent Enyeama, Austin Ejide, Chigozie Agbim, Joseph Yobo,
Elderson Echiejile, Kenneth Omuero, Efe Ambrose, Azubuike Egwuekwe,
Godfrey Oboabona, Mikel Obi, Reuben Gabriel, Nosa Igiebor, Obiora
Nwankwo, Brown Ideye, Ogenyi Onazi, while Ejike Uzoenyi, Victor Moses,
Ikechukwu Uche, Sunday Mba and Emmanuel Emenike.
Nobody complained
that this squad was lopsided because we knew these were our best and if
we wanted to win we had to present our best. At the end of the day they
brought home the cup and that was all that mattered.
In the same
vein, nobody should complain about where Buhari’s appointees come from.
What we should insist on is that they are appointed on the basis of
merit and that at the end of 2019 they must bring home the cup by giving
Nigerians good governance that will yield tangible democracy dividends.
Nigerians are always quick to say the problem with Nigeria is corruption, but I am not so sure it is.
Corruption is a symptom of the problem but it in itself is not the problem.
Corruption
is the catarrh coming out of Nigeria’s nose. If you experience catarrh
you do not treat it by merely cleaning your nose. The discharge will
just keep coming because you are treating the symptom not the cause.
The way to treat catarrh is by treating its root cause which is the common cold.
What is the common cold that is causing the discharge of mucous from Nigerians nose?
In my humble opinion, it is quota system and the principle of federal character.
Federal character and quota system are the root cause of corruption in Nigeria.
As
long as ethnicity is the yardstick for admitting children into schools
or recruiting adults into the civil service, we will never have a merit
driven system and where we do not have a merit driven system, the end
result will be corruption.
President Muhammadu Buhari means well in
his anti corruption battle, but if a civil servant has to report to
someone who is less qualified than him and who only got his position
because of quota system or federal character, his morale would be low
and he will not be committed and when opportunity presents itself to be
corrupt, that civil servant will seize it and he will not feel sorry or
guilty.
As long as there is no level playing field in Nigeria,
none of our anti corruption efforts will work. We will merely be
cleaning rye discharge of mucous from our nose. There cannot be a
successful anti corruption war in the midst of social injustice.
Nigerians are not by nature correct. It is the Nigerian system that is by nature corrupt.
The
other day the Federal Ministry of Education released cut off marks for
unity schools and the cut off Mark for one state is 138 out of 200 while
the cut off mark for another state is 4 out of 200.
This is not a joke! This is a reality in modern day Nigeria in the year 2015 and I kid you not!
Right
there and then Nigeria has planted the seed of corruption in the heart
of the child from the 138/200 state and the seed of entitlement in the
heart of the child from the 4/200 state.
Any system that is not built
on merit cannot but be corrupt. It is a fact of life and those who do
not like this inconvenient truth can get as angry as they like with me
and people like me, but that will not change the truth.
Whether
we like to say it or not or whether we choose to pretend it does not
exist, the truth remains that so many groups in Nigeria feel alienated
by quota system and federal character.
We have grand plans as a
nation of being amongst the top 20 biggest economies of the world by
2020, but which of the countries amongst the current top 20 economies
has a system like ours?
The answer is none.
The G 7 nations of
Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the
United States along with their partner nations of China and Russia are
constantly competing with each other in the areas of early childhood to
high school education.
If the educational pass rates of children in
America is slipping when compared to that of other nations in the G-7,
it will become a major electoral issue.
The influential Paris-based
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) releases a
regular triennial study of global education systems and these nations
keenly compete to outdo each other in these rankings.
Now, how
can Nigeria expect to join their ranks and compete internationally when
we do not even allow fair competition domestically?
Are we going
to write a letter to the G-7 or the OECD telling them that is not fair
to expect us to compete with them and ask them to lower the standards
for us?
Merit is the way. No, I take that back. Merit is the ONLY
way. And I thank God that we have a President with the foresight to
base his appointments solely on merit.
That is a beginning, now
we must ensure that merit is also applied to admission into government
schools and recruitments into the public service.
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