Pat Stephen/
More dead people are being dug up from the latest list of President Muhammadu Buhari’s board appointments.
At the last count, Nigerians have identified seven names of dead people on the list since NewsmakersNG first published the discovery of the late Second Republic senator and member of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Francis Okpozo who made the list as Chairman of the Nigerian Press Council (NPC).
Okpozo died at 81, in 2016, and the Presidency issued a statement on December 28, 2016 expressing condolences to the government of Delta State on his death.
The other discoveries are: Rev Fr Christopher Ierwua Utov, Retd DIG Donald Ugbaja, Garba Attahiru Kaduna, Umar Dange Sokoto, Comrade Ahmed Bunza, and a woman – Miss Magdalene Kumu from Taraba State.
The late Miss Kumu is on the list as member of the National Film and Video Censor Board.
The late Utov is on the list as member of the Nigeria Institute of Social and Economic Research. He was the founder and proprietor of Fidei Polytechnic, Gboko, in Benue State.
The late DIG Ugbaja is on the list as member, Consumer Protection Council.
Bunza, who was 65 when he died at the Usman Danfodio University Teaching Hospital in Sokoto, had served as Sole Administrator of Jega Local Government and retired from the Civil Service as Director, Youth, at the Ministry of Youths and Sports.
Presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, has, however, exonerated President Buhari from the blunder.
Shehu said, “The list has a history” which explains the controversy around it.
According to him, in 2015, when the President requested all state chapters of the party to submit names of 50 party members for board appointments, the names were compiled by the national secretariat of the APC and forwarded to the then secretary to the government of the federation, Mr Babachir Lawal.
“However, complaint arose from some governors who felt they were not carried along in the process. To answer this, the president constituted a committee under the vice president to review and reflect the interest of the governors,” Shehu said.
He added that action was delayed on the report of the committee headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo when President Buhari took ill.
Read our earlier story on the list here:http://www.newsmakersng.com/2017/12/30/fg-appoints-dead-man-as-board-chairman-of-nigerian-press-council/
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