Senator Sonni Ogbuoji, a Vice Chairman , Senate Committee On Appropriation As Well As Vice Chairman , Senate Committee On Special Duties, has in an interview with The Telegraph on the performance of the APC government, responded as follows:
APC is a sinking ship ; neither the captain nor their crew know what they are supposed to do . As you can see, there is no facet of the Nigerian state that is not bleeding . Look at the appointment that President Muhammadu Buhari has made so far , it is obvious that if you call Nigeria , what you mean is Northern Nigeria .
If you look at the economy , this government came in inheriting more than $ 30 billion from the previous administration in form of reserve , today we are below $ 3 billion . If you look at the general well being ; everybody is crying and lamenting . In fact , some people have continued to ask themselves why they ever voted for APC.
For those of us who did not vote APC, we are asking them to explain to us what they mean by change . Does change mean deprivation ? The mantra they are telling us that is change is fighting corruption . Anybody who loves this country called Nigeria will support the war against corruption but what is corruption? Is corruption just fighting financial embezzlement ?
The answer is no because it is not only financial embezzlement that is corruption . Corruption is also when you appoint people that should not be appointed to offices ; corruption is when you do not recognise that this country is a very plural country, corruption is a whole lot ; in fact , I don ’ t know which area to start .
Shortly before we embarked on the Sallah break in the Senate, we were addressing the recent list submitted to us about people who should be considered to head our foreign missions .
These are career civil servants . There is no state that does not have career civil servants in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs but what do we have ? The list that was submitted does not include several states . Even those that were selected, they went below to select people who are less qualified.
Diplomacy is an art which you learn ; like wine , as it gets older , it becomes sweeter . You find a situation where you have directors from a state and you go and appoint an assistant director when you have deputy directors and directors who are qualified.
You have people who are going to stay more than ten years in their career; you go and appoint people , who ordinarily should not be considered . And the Senate took a resolution that we should invite the Minister of Foreign Affairs to the Committee on Foreign Affairs to explain to us the criteria used in this selection .
