The call on the president to reconsider his appointments of two northerners as chairman and secretary of the Federal Character Commission (FCC) is anything but unfortunate and unnecessary.
The constitution vests the president with the powers of nominating persons from every state of the country to the National Assembly for confirmations as members of the commission. This same constitution also vested the president with the sole power of selection among members from the ones confirmed as chairman of the commission.
The secretary of the commission is appointed also by the president, but not from within the members of the commission. This appointment is the sole responsibility of the president even though, it is expected that it should also pass some transparency and integrity tests.
The president is not to be coerced into making such appointments as it is not the intention of the crafters of this constitution.
Agreed, the chairman of the commission, Dr Muheeba Dankaka and the secretary are both from different zones of the north; but what the sponsors of this motion failed to investigate is whether the secretary was appointed at the same time the chairman was appointed.
It is on record that the secretary of the commission was appointed in March 2017 and has just finished his first tenure.
The enabling Act that created the commission also vested on the president the power to reconsider him for reappointment as secretary of the commission if he was convinced that he performed well.
To people of good conscience, the question at stake is, therefore; merit or the federal character application?
The president during the inauguration of the members of the FCC recently stated that the chairman and other principal officers of the commission were picked based on merit other requirements such as professional competence, adherence to the principles of transparency and accountability.
Musa Wada writes from Abuja
