President Muhammadu Buhari has been advised to respect the constitutional tenets of Federal Character in making high profile security appointments even as his recent failure to ensure balance in the Nigerian tripod in his choices for security chiefs has been described as appalling and disappointing.

This is the position of the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA). The group in a statement in reaction to the recent top security appointments said there was no justification for the consistent maltreatment of the South Eastern segment of the nation by almost all Federal Government Administrations in recent history including the immediate past Good luck Jonathan government which gave a minimally mid-level security position to an officer of South East extraction but reshuffled him out for no reason subsequently after only few months.

Besides, the rights group said the law of natural justice apart from even abundant constitutional principles and provisions frown at the singling out of one major ethnic group for systemic marginalisation in sensitive appointments such as excluding them in the membership of the Nigerian Military/Security Council constantly. “Is it forbidden to name an Igbo-born Nigerian military officer as Chief of Defence Staff?”

HURIWA urged President Buhari to right the wrongs perpetually perpetrated at the highest levels politically against the Igbo of South East Nigeria and give every facets of the Nigerian geopolitical a deep sense of belonging so no one tribe is stereotypically considered the endangered species in the Federation of Nigeria.

HURIWA National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, and the National Media affairs Director Miss Zainab Yusuf, also called on the current Federal Government to redress the seeming imbalance in the top level appointments made so far skewed in favour of only one region which produced the occupant of the office of President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria because the Rights group believes that Muhammadu Buhari is the President of Nigeria and not the Sardauna of Northern Nigeria.

The rights group submitted that logically from all the most strategic political cum security appointments made so far “most observers all around the world who have sent us their reactions think Mr. President is increasingly abandoning his towering status of a nationalist and is building another image as the leader of the Conservative Northern Nigeria.” “This regional toga must not stick,” the group said.

“How do you justify the choices of persons with very high level Ethnic and Religious affiliations with the President to occupy the top most positions of Director General of Department of State Security; Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission and now sixty five percent of the most senior Security chiefs in the Federal Republic of Nigeria are all from one out of the six geopolitical zones and only one region which is always the fall guy the South East alienated once more. Why can't President Buhari find someone out of the over 50 million Igbo speaking Nigerians to be entrusted with a serious security duty for fatherland?” HURIWA queried.

HURIWA further stated thus: “We call on President Muhammadu Buhari to respect the constitutionally guaranteed principle of Federal Character in his top level appointments to give a sense of belonging to all segments of the Nigerian Society. It is morally reprehensible and indeed a constitutional sin of monumental proportions for the current administration to not only continue with the systemic marginalisation of the South East but is trying to up the ante in this scheme of divide-and-rule tendencies.”

HURIWA said the exclusion of the South East in these very important defence appointments is not morally, politically and constitutionally justified or explainable because even by merit effective persons abound in all segments of the Nigeria society and you can’t keep treating a significant population of the nation State as unwanted citizens.

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