A Lagos-based lawyer and human rights activist, Festus Keyamo, has faulted critics of the appointments so far made by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Keyamo, in a statement on Friday, said those accusing the President of lopsidedness in his appointments are jobless politicians who continually live off government.
He said what Nigerians require now are effective leaders who can deliver on their mandates and not the areas they come from.
Buhari was criticised on Thursday when only one of the six people he named into key offices was a Southerner.
But Keyamo said there was nothing wrong in this inasmuch as they appointees can deliver.
He said in the statement: “The so-called “uproar” over the perceived “lopsided” appointments made so far by President Buhari is nothing but an orchestrated frustration of a few jobless politicians who depend only on government appointments as their means of livelihood and, of course, the noise of the latest opposition party in town. The majority of Nigerians want to see good governance, pure and simple, and care less about the ethnic origin of those appointed into positions.
“My worry is that the decade-long general division of government positions into “juicy” and “non-juicy”, and the mentality that these few “juicy” positions must be shared equally amongst the major ethnic groups was nothing but a contraption of the old order from which we have just liberated ourselves.
“To my mind, all government appointments pose an equal challenge to those appointed as a call to higher service of fatherland. All public positions come with an equal responsibility to be honest, forthright and dedicated. To go further to classify them as “juicy” or “non-juicy is just a euphemism for positions that have enough money from which to steal and those that are “dry”. Therefore, any agitation from a section of the country to get “juicy” positions is only an agitation for their kinsmen to be appointed to steal enough from which they would benefit.
“I therefore unreservedly condemn, in the strongest of terms, the so-called “uproar” about “juicy positions” going only to a certain section of this country. All sections of this country should be happy and content with whatever positions that the President deems fit, at the end of the day, to give to their kinsmen.
“After all, the President still has a long way to go with appointments. He has not even filled up to five percent of available positions.
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