The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has described as “nepotistic” the appointment of Professor Ibrahim Gambari by President Muhammadu Buhari as his Chief of Staff arguing that it has diminished his status as a statesman and a nationalist.

HURIWA also criticised the appointment of Gambari into public office when he was a Minister about four decades ago when most Nigerians now were not born, adding that the choice of the Chief of Staff who is almost 80 years old shows that President Buhari loves gerontocracy rather than democracy under which he was elected.

In a media statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, and the National Media Affairs Director, Miss Zainab Yusuf, HURIWA said it was unfortunate that for five years, the President has been consistent in showing his soft spot and passion for his tribesmen/women and religious associates from the North in always picking and placing them into strategic national positions.

“With the rash of appointments into the Federal Character Commission (FCC) and the Police Trust Fund (PTF ) in which northern Muslims are nominated as Chairmen and Executive Secretaries,” HURIWA said, “it is now clear that contrary to the widely held belief that it was the late Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari, that was to be blamed for sectional appointments made since the last five years, the President himself is directly responsible for these appointments that are in breach of the federal character principles enshrined in Section 14 (3) of the Nigerian constitution of 1999 as amended.

“The demise of the immediate past CoS, Mallam Kyari, was seen by some observers as the end of nepotism and sectionalism in the Buhari-led administration because those that accused the then powerful CoS from Borno State assumed that as someone who belonged to the infamous ‘Kaduna Mafia’ and had lived in Kaduna metropolis which is the centre of pro-northern politics, that he was instrumental to the heavily biased pro-north appointments made by the current administration since the past five years.

“But now, with these many appointments by President Buhari made after the demise of Mallam Kyari, it has manifested clearly that the President is personally responsible for these one-sided strategic appointments given to the North. Ibrahim Gambari is Fulani. That the President does not even trust a Southerner as his Chief of Staff shows that the much-touted legacy that Buhari is a nationalist and a statesman is at best a ruse and a propaganda.”

HURIWA stated that the first public comments by the newly appointed Chief of Staff that he is not answerable to Nigerians but to the President has shown the danger of nepotism and favouritism in making national appointment in a complex society like Nigeria.

HURIWA said this response is saddening and show that Nigerians will not get any qualitative or quantitative public service from the current chief of staff.

“It is therefore a closed matter for Nigerians to expect any quality public service from a man who tells the citizens not to expect accountability and openness from him whilst he holds a publicly-funded office,” HURIWA stressed.