By TINA TIMOTHY

President Muhammadu Buhari’s recent appointment of his wife Aisha’s brother, Ahmed Halilu as Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Nigerian Printing and Minting Company (NSPMC) Plc, the body entrusted with production confidential materials in the country, including Nigeria’s currency, is raising dust in some quarters.

A group, Gravitas Group for Good Governance (GGGG), an International Advocacy Organization for Good Governance, Accountability and Transparency with chapters spread across the globe, in a statement on Saturday, September 3, 2022 signed by Professor Olugbenga Ayeni and High Chief Tola Adeniyi, described Haliliu’s appointment by the President as the limit of impropriety, impunity and nepotism.

The statement reads: “Our attention has just been drawn to another act of gross insensitivity and crass disregard for the mores of a decent society recently unleashed on Nigeria, a country in the throes of death, by its maximum ruler, retired Major-General Muhammadu Buhari.

“It was not much of a shocking news, because nothing shocks Nigerians anymore, that Buhari has appointed his wife’s brother Ahmed Halilu, as the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Nigerian Printing and Minting Company Plc.; the body entrusted with most sacred and supremely confidential materials in the land.

“Newspot, a vibrant Online Newspaper, reported that ‘the President approved the appointment on the recommendation of the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, who serves as the NSPMC board Chairman.’

“It will be recalled that Godwin Emefiele, the man allegedly planted in the Central Bank by a late Influencer, an unpretentious Caliphate stalwart and Buhari’s in-law, to empty the national treasury and ruin the national currency, the Naira, has excellently succeeded in his inglorious assignment. And to rub insult on the open sore, Mr. President, the unquestionable ruler of Nigeria, has decided to complete the cycle by bringing the country’s Mint to his bedroom.

“It is quite worrisome that the brother of Mr. President’s wife will now be superintending over the printing of all sensitive materials in the land. Under his watch and dictate, passports, currency notes, ballot papers and other sensitive election materials, as well as classified documents, can now be printed at the whim and caprices and dashed to whoever, whenever and wherever as exigencies of cloudy political scheming demand.”

The group condemned, in strong terms, Halilu’s appointment and called on the international community to include the appointment to the list of shenanigans heaped on Nigerians by the Buhari-led administration, adding that it would be a huge waste of time and effort to persuade the President to cancel the appointment.

“We, at the Gravitas Group for Good Governance strongly condemn this slap on the face of all that is decent and honourable and invite the International Community represented in this unfortunate country by Ambassadors, High Commissioners and International Agencies to add this act of impunity to the list of shenanigans heaped on Nigerians by the current authoritarian government headed by Major-General Buhari for the day of reckoning.

“It will amount to a monumental waste of saliva to ask Buhari to rescind this ugly and obviously self-serving award to his brother in-law because it would not happen. Nevertheless, let our cry of disapproval get registered so that in the fullness of time, justice would be served.

“By the way, is Nigeria’s National Assembly dead? What has happened to Civil Society Organizations? And will someone wake up the Council of State members?” GGGG asked.

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