Senior Special Assistant to President Buhari on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, has given an explanation to why the names of three dead Nigerians were in the list of appointees for boards of various Federal government parastatals that was released yesterday December 29, 2017.
The controversial list had three dead Nigerians including; Donald Ugbaja, died November 2017, Chris Utov, died March 2017 and Senator Francis Okpozo, who died in December 2016.
In a telephone interview with Premium Times, Garba Shehu said the list of the appointees ”has a history”.
According to him, shortly after President Buhari came into to office, he requested all state chapters of APC to submit names of 50 party members to be considered for board appointment. Garba said when the names from the various party chairmen were forwarded to President Buhari, the different state governors protested, saying they have not carried along.
To pacify the state governors, President Buhari immediately constituted a committee under the leadership of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, to review and reflect the interest of the governors.
The report from the Osinbajo-led committee was, however, not immediately implemented because President Buhari took ill and was out of the country for a while.
“The president’s trips for medical attention slowed down completion of the process,” he said, until when Buhari decided to revisit the matter recently.
“The current SGF was only directed to complete that process by releasing the list which he apparently did without altering it,” Shehu explained.
Shehu added that the list contained some errors which would be corrected immediately. He said there is no need describing the list as scandalous.
