Civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, (HURIWA), on Monday, asked the incoming administration of the President-Elect, Bola Tinubu to set up a presidential panel to review the lopsided and nepotistic appointments of heads of security agencies by the outgoing regime of President Muhammadu Buhari.

HURIWA, in a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, said the Buhari regime demonstrated divisiveness by failing to recognise the principle of federal character and balancing in the appointments of services chiefs, favouring northerners alone.

The group warned that Tinubu must avoid this skewed and nepostistic tendency exhibited by Buhari and spoken against by strong voices like the Bishop of Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, Matthew Hassan-Kukah and other notable Nigerians.

Specifically, Section 14(3) of the 1999 Constitution provides that the composition of the Government of the Federation or any of its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such a manner as to reflect the federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity, and also to command national loyalty, thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few State or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in that Government or in any of its agencies.

However, Buhari divided the country by appointing his kinsmen as heads of security agencies.

In fact, in November 2022, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, on Wednesday, condemned what he described as the lopsided appointment of heads of security agencies by the Buhari’s administration, saying 17 heads of security agencies are Northerners.

The President extended the tenure of the Inspector General of Police, Usman Baba after he is due for retirement on March 1, 2023, at age 60.

The President did a similar thing in the case of his appointment of Dauda Ali Biu as the acting Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps last year despite that he has reached the retirement at the mandatory age of 60 on March 1, 2023, according to the Federal Civil Service Rules.

Also, following expiration of his one-year tenure extension on April 24, 2023, the retired Comptroller General (CG) of Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Isah Idris, remained in office in a fresh elongation by President Buhari.

In 2021, President Buhari quietly gifted his unqualified nephew the position of an assistant director at the National Intelligence Agency (NIA). Just last week, the President appointed a retiring Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG), Garba Umar, as senior security adviser on International Police Cooperation and Counter-terrorism in the office of the Minister of Police Affairs.

HURIWA’s Onwubiko said, “The IGP ought to have retired but remains in office. FRSC’s CG ought to have retired but he is being retained. We call for a presidential panel by incoming administration to re-examine, nullify and correct these hurriedly made appointments and nepotistic retention by the outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari so as to sanitise these institutions already polluted by President Muhammadu Buhari which is why they are hobbled by corruption. Inefficiency and lukewarmness.”