The Lagos State chapter of the All Progressives Congress, APC, has dismissed claims that President Bola Tinubu is attempting to ‘visiblize’ Northern Yorubas.
The occasion was reacting to a latest article by Farooq Kperogi, who stated the appointment of Professor Joash Amupitan because the chairman of the Unbiased Nationwide Electoral Fee, INEC, was a part of Tinubu’s agenda to visiblize Northern Yorubas.
The Lagos APC described Kperogi’s claims as a mischievous spin on Tinubu’s “merit-based management”.
The spokesman of the state chapter of APC, Mogaji Seye Oladejo, stated it’s unlucky {that a} revered tutorial like Kperogi continues to deploy his pen as an instrument of distortion and ethnic mischief somewhat than fact and purpose.
In a press release he signed, Oladejo stated: “The eye of the Lagos State Chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has been drawn to yet one more of Farooq Kperogi’s more and more predictable essays titled “New INEC Boss and Tinubu’s Visibilization of Northern Yorubas.”
“Professor Kperogi’s piece is a drained rehash of the identical ethnic reductionism that has lengthy plagued Nigeria’s political discourse – the lazy assumption that each appointment by a Southern chief should have an ethnic or parochial undertone.
“For a person of supposed mental depth, it’s disappointing that he conveniently ignores the info: Professor Joash Amupitan, SAN, was appointed INEC Chairman primarily based on advantage, expertise, and unimpeachable integrity – not ethnicity.
“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, greater than any Nigerian chief in latest historical past, has constructed his political profession on the precept of inclusion, competence, and reward for advantage. His appointments since assuming workplace replicate the complete variety of Nigeria – throughout faiths, ethnicities, and areas. To recommend that the appointment of a distinguished authorized scholar from Kogi State is a few grand “Yorubacentric” venture is each dishonest and mischievous.”
Oladejo stated it’s instructive that even in his convoluted try to assign sinister motives, Kperogi admits that Professor Amupitan is a Christian, has no document of partisanship, and hails from the North Central area.
“But, he nonetheless labors to border his appointment as an extension of Yoruba hegemony. That contradiction alone betrays the vacancy of his argument.”
The Lagos APC reminded Kperogi and his echo chamber that Nigeria has moved past the provincial politics of suspicion and sectionalism.
He stated President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda is pushed by competence, not geography, including that from the South-East to the far North, his cupboard and key appointments communicate the language of nationwide steadiness and capability, not ethnicity.
He added: “If the discovered professor have been much less obsessive about ethnic framing and extra involved with fact, he would have celebrated the President for giving visibility to a minority group inside the North – a gesture that promotes inclusion somewhat than division. Turning that gesture into an ethnic conspiracy is mental dangerous religion at its worst.
“We additionally discover laughable his insinuation that Tinubu is “visibilizing northern Yorubas” as some ethnic bait. The President wants no ethnic arithmetic to consolidate legitimacy. His pan-Nigerian mandate was freely given by Nigerians who noticed past tribe or tongue, and who trusted in his capability to steer a fancy nation with knowledge and steadiness.
“In distinction, Kperogi’s routine fixation on ethnicity is a relic of the politics of resentment – a drained template for individuals who can’t comprehend the cosmopolitan and bridge-building nature of President Tinubu’s politics. From his days as Lagos Governor, the place his cupboard was a microcosm of Nigeria, to his document of supporting succesful leaders throughout all zones, Tinubu’s nationalism is lived, not theorized.”
The Lagos APC suggested armchair commentators to rise above ethnic lenses and recognize advantage once they see it, stressing that Professor Amupitan’s appointment is a win for the legislation, for competence, and for Nigeria.
“To scale back it to an ethnic calculation is to insult the intelligence of the Nigerian folks,” he added.
“Ultimately, Kperogi’s “Notes from Atlanta” is much less a commentary on Tinubu’s management and extra a confession of his personal ethnic anxieties – an try to see division the place none exists, and to venture prejudice onto a frontrunner who has constantly constructed bridges throughout Nigeria’s variety. Nigeria has moved on. Kperogi ought to too,” the assertion added.
