A former presidential aide, Reno Omokri, has reacted to President Muhammadu Buhari’s claims that he has been fair to Igbos despite receiving few votes from the South East geopolitical zone in the 2015 presidential election.
Speaking in a Monday interview with Arise TV, Buhari said, “Somebody made an observation that I was not patronising the Igbo from the South East. I told him that when I won the election, I studied the amount of votes I got from all the geopolitical zones.
“I said I got 198,000 from the whole of the South East, which virtually any local government can give me. But I appointed ministers of foreign affairs, labour, industries, and investment, mines and tech; these four; I never knew them from Adam. Ministers of States from seven states of the north are under these ministers. How fair do you want me to be?
“So I threw him away with his paper.”
However, Omokri, a former Special Assistant on New Media to President Jonathan, reminded Buhari that he was compelled by the constitution to appoint Igbo ministers and did not do it out of his own will.
Omokri, who is based in the United States, took to his verified Twitter handle to tackle the president.
He read, “Since President Muhammadu Buhari does not read, somebody should tell him he was not the one who gave the Igbos 5 “standing ministers” (are there sitting ministers?). It was the Constitution that gave it to them. It is not an act of magnanimity by Buhari, but an act of compulsion by law!”
See tweet:
Since President @MBuhari does not read, somebody should tell him he was not the one who gave the Igbos 5 “standing ministers” (are there sitting ministers?). It was the Constitution that gave it to them. It is not an act of magnanimity by Buhari, but an act of compulsion by law!
— Reno Omokri (@renoomokri) January 9, 2019