Why We Appointed Dead Men Into Federal Board – Presidency

The Senior Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu has made some clarifications on the controversial appointments of some notable Nigerians which included two dead men into boards and parastatals.

Shehu in his reaction told some journalists that “the list has a history” which explains the controversy around it.

“In 2015, Mr. President requested all state chapters of the party to submit names of 50 party members for board appointments”.

He said the names were compiled by the national secretariat of the APC and forwarded to the then secretary to the government of the federation, Babachir Lawal.

“However, complaint arose from some governors who felt they were not carried along in the process. To answer this, the president constituted a committee under the vice president to review and reflect the interest of the governors”.

Mr Shehu however said action was delayed on the report of the committee headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo as President Muhammadu Buhari took ill.

“The president’s trips for medical attention slowed down completion of the process,” he said, until when Mr Buhari decided to revisit the matter recently.

“The current SGF was only directed to complete that process by releasing the list which he apparently did without altering it,” Mr. Shehu explained.

Mr Shehu admitted that errors were committed but added that “no human undertaking can be free of mistakes”.

He said the errors identified with the list were not enough to describe the exercise as scandalous, insisting that “there is no scandal”.

The spokesperson however noted that all errors in the list would be corrected.