The first thing that will come to the minds of many when they hear of Kogi State these days is the absurd number of political appointments that the Governor of the State, Yahya Bello, recently made – 54 senior special assistants and 9 special assistants. Appointments which will become effective from the first of April, 2017.
Six legal practitioners are however not content with those appointments and are bent on seeing one more Kogi indigenes in government and they have filed a suit against the President to see that that is done as soon as possible.
While the appointments made by the governor are solely his prerogative, the appointment that has these lawyers agitated relates more to the Federal Character which mandates the President to make ministerial appointments from every State of the Federation.
Currently, there is no Kogi State representative at the Ministerial level and this has been the case for almost a year now since James Ocholi, the former Minister of State for Labour and Productivity died in a fatal car accident on his way to Abuja about 40 kilometres away from Kaduna where he died on the spot, alongside his wife and son.
These lawyers – Felix Okolo, Femi Victor Motojesi, Samuel Ogala, Dickson Enema, David Adegbe and Titilope Akerejola – have now filed a suit in tyhe Federal High Court, Lokoja against the President to compel him to answer (through the Attorney-General, Abubakar Malami) questions on the legal and constitutional effect of his refusal to appoint a minister from Kogi state.
The originating summons seeks reply to: “Whether the current composition of the federal executive council of the federation without a substantive minister representing Kogi state in the Federal Executive Council for over 10 months is not a breach of Section 143 (3) of the constitution of the federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 as amended.
“Whether the failure of the first defendant (President Buhari) to appoint a substantive minister from Kogi state into the Federal Executive Council is not a flagrant and violent breach of the principal of equality and justice upon which the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 as amended is founded.
And also, “whether by virtue of the provision of sections 147 (3) of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, as amended, the first defendant has a mandatory duty to appoint an indigene of Kogi state as minister of the federation into the Federal Executive Council.”
It certainly would be weird to find that only Kogi State has no ministerial representation as this suit makes it seem but another question will be if we really need a Minister of State for Labour and Productivity.
It will be nice to hear what the Presidency has to say about this on the 6th of May when the case has been adjourned to.
Creative mind. Enthusiast. Learner. Multipotentialite. And here, an assistant editor.
we await the outcome of the case, because the president has forgotten that we gave him victory in 2015 general elections, thank you lawyers