As mixed reactions continue to trail the recent appointments made by President Muhammadu Buhari, people of the South East region, have been asked to exercise patience and not rush into making quick conclusions that they will be marginalized under the present administration.
The Special Assistant to the Imo State Governor and Liaison Officer, Lagos, Alfred Ononugbo, made this plea yesterday, while speaking at a press conference in Lagos, to announce a Solidarity Rally and Grand Reception in honour of Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State, on Saturday, July 25, at the National Arts Theatre, Iganmu, Lagos.
The Imo governor’s aide, who affirmed that Ndigbo cannot be relegated to the background as one of the tripod legs holding Nigeria, however, advised that the Buhari administration should be given time to familiarize itself with the degree of challenge ahead on order to make appropriate selection in his appointments.
Disclosing that the programme was put up by the Imo State Liaison Office, Lagos, in collaboration with South East All Progressives Congress forum, South East Communities in Lagos, Ononugbo said: “You can’t talk about Nigeria without Ndigbo, and you can’t talk about Ndigbo without Nigeria. So, we want to make it clear through this Solidarity Rally and Grand Reception in honour of the Imo State Governor, Chief Rochas Okorocha, that we are part of the Nigerian project that we are stakeholders in the Nigerian project.
“We trust our leaders and we feel it’s too early to begin to make deductions. The fact that APC stood for merit underscores the situation on ground at the moment. I think we should allow the Buhari administration find its feet. The administration is studying the situation of the country, because the APC met a totally broken down infrastructure and system in the country.
“However, we have people of Igbo extraction competent enough to handle assignments. So, I think we should allow our leaders time to digest the degree of challenge ahead and make appropriate selections, to find heads that can feat into those caps. Our major problem in this part of the world is that we are too hasty in judging the Buhari administration that has barely spent three months that it’s discriminating against Ndigbo. That is not correct.
“In a country of 170million, if barely 17 people have gotten appointments, I don’t know how we want to assess that. We are not in a hurry. We have no fear and doubt in Buhari. We trust the man we have elected as the President of Nigeria. He won this election based on his personal integrity and we believe deeply in our heart that his integrity will speak for him and he will be vindicated at the end of the day”, he said.
