Alaigbo Development Foundation yesterday in Abuja described the appointment of service chiefs made by President Mohammed Buhari without an Igbo extraction as unfortunate.
The foundation in a statement signed by its administrative secretary, Chinedu Aroh, quotes the president of ADF, Prof T. Uzodinma Nwala, as saying that, “The armed forces is the most critical sphere of power in any society. Nigeria is a multi-ethnic society. Many of its component units are much bigger than many powerful nations in the world. To distribute key positions of power within the armed forces of the federation with no Igbo man occupying any position is most unfortunate. It is like saying the Igbos do not count or belong.”
Nwala called on the Igbo nation to reject and resist as a fragrant act of subversion of the federal constitution, and urged them to speak out at this early life of the new government. He said, “We believe that there are democratic-minded people in this Republic outside Igbo-land who are bound to see this set of appointments as grossly unconstitutional and unfair to the Igbo nation, not just the South-East zone alone. This signal is very ominous.”
He quoted the 1999 Constitution as making room for power-sharing in keeping with the political realities of a multi-ethnic federation, citing Third Schedule, Part 1 Section C, which provides for a Federal Institution called the Federal Character Commission. He said that constitutional body is charged with the power to ‘work out an equitable formula subject to the approval of the National Assembly for the distribution of all cadres of posts in the public service of the Federation and of the States, the armed forces of the Federation, the Nigeria Police Force and her government security agencies, government owned companies and parastatals of the states’.
