By Cosmas Omegoh, Lagos
Ohaneze Ndigbo chieftain and onetime All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential aspirant Chief Charles Udeogaranya has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to appoint a southeasterner as Inspector-General of Police if he found no one from competent enough to serve as a service chief.
The politician dismissed the suggestion that there is no Igbo appointee in the President’s new batch of service chiefs because he had found no one from the region competent enough.
‘There are certain appointments that are subject to federal character, for instance, the constitution says that there must be a minister from each state of the country,’ the President’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, had said in recent interview with Channels TV, while defending the new appointments.
‘However, there are certain appointments that are not subject to federal character and one of them is in the security.
‘In security, It is about competence; it is about the ability to deliver.’
‘So, the President will appoint whoever he feels is fit and proper and will deliver to the best for the country and for Nigerians,’ the presidential spokesman had said.
The President recently appointed Maj Gen LEO Irabor as the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Maj Gen I Attahiru as Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Rear Admiral A Z Gambo as Chief of Naval Staff (CNS), and AVM I O Amao as Chief of Air Staff (CAS).
Udeogaranya described Adesina’s defence as ‘an aggravated insult to the people of the South-East region.
‘If the president truly found no person in the army competent to be appointed as a service chief, we then ask him to appoint one of us then as Inspector-General of Police.
‘But we should not forget that it was the same South-East that once produced the first Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces as Governor-General and President, Head of State of the country in the person of Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe.
‘The South-East produced the second Commander-in-Chief by Nigeria’s first Acting President in the person of Nwafor Orizu.
‘The South-East produced the first Nigerian military general, crowned by the United Nations in Congo for his competence in the World War and the same the man was Nigeria first military president and the 3rd Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces in the person of General Aguiyi Ironsi.
‘The war against Boko Haram insurgency and insecurity received its best success combat by the Nigeria Army headed by a South-Eastner, General Ihejirika,’ Udeogaranya said.
‘We, therefore demand that the presidency withdraws the derogatory statement against the South-East with a sincere apology in the quickest time possible.’