The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has slammed Bola Tinubu for appointing Mr. Daniel Bwala, the former campaign spokesman for ex-Vice President Atiku Abubakar, as his Special Adviser on Public Communication and Media.
HURIWA asserted that Bwala’s efforts to convey any meaningful achievements of the administration to Nigerians would be futile, citing his controversial reputation.
“The media of mass communication wouldn’t even take any of his words as believable because of his notoriety in absolutely rubbishing the credentials, integrity and credibility of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu during the presidential campaign in 2023,” HURIWA said in a statement signed by Emmanuel Onwubiko, its National Coordinator.
Moreover, HURIWA knocked Tinubu for refusing to remove former Lagos lawmaker Mrs. Mojisolaoluwa Alli-Macaulay from her position as Executive Director of Operations at the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), despite allegations of misappropriating COVID-19 palliatives.
HURIWA said: “It is a deep-seated act of executive lawlessness for someone with unresolved allegation of official indiscretion to be elevated by President Tinubu to occupy a prime position in the same NSITF whereby one of its heads by name Ngozi Olejeme was on Octover 22nd 2021 arraigned in the Federal High Court over alleged N1 billion fraud.
“NSITF as an agency that has suffered serial cases of heist allegedly committed by appointees, it is therefore insanely immoral for the current President to appoint a lady who as a law maker in Lagos was widely accused of diverting palliatives meant for poor Lagosians. Has Nigeria ran out of persons without any form of moral baggage of allegations of theft of public funds or assets?”
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HURIWA noted the designation of Bwala as his spokesman an emphatic statement by Tinubu that public opinion matters little to him.
“How does president Tinubu expect any sane Nigerian to believe any communication out of the mouth of Daniel Bwala, the same person, who as the campaign spokesman of Atiku Abubakar, the PDP presidential flag bearer in the 2023 poll, went to the gutter level of branding the APC presidential candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as someone associated with drug trafficking?
“What has changed between when Bwala was running down Tinubu during the presidential campaign and now that he has gone to grab a presidential appointment?
“The memories of Nigerians are fresh and we remember all the dirty campaigns against the person of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, including tagging him with such a heinous crime in a prime time interview with a TV stations that was watched by over 100 million Nigerians and then the same extensively damaging information on Tinubu circulated on the front pages of major newspapers.
“Mr. President should endeavor to inject respect for ethics and morality in deciding on whom to appoint into Public offices. Sir, you must realise that any attempt to give the impression that government has no care in the world for public perception of your APC administration, then the essence of governance is inevitably defeated.
“Imagine the same person who made sensational allegations against the president when he was a candidate, now becoming the spokesman in of the same President as if Nigerians have no retentive memories.
“This is a moral aberration. Mr. President, if Bwala needed financial assistance, why not give him a legal consultancy to make genuine incomes instead of rubbishing the high office of Special adviser on Public Communication and Media.”
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