President Goodluck Jonathan’s appointment of the former Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, as Chairman of the Board of Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) has expectedly generated negative reactions from Nigerians.
Tukur has had a long-running battle with many of the party’s governors and other prominent stakeholders of the party over what they described as his high-handedness and incompetence. But he had the support of the President and his wife all along.
However, when the heat was getting too much and he saw the handwriting of his imminent removal on the wall, Tukur, on January 16, was forced to resign and replaced by a former governor of Bauchi State, Adamu Mua’zu, whose appointment as Chairman of the National Pension Commission (PenCom) had earlier been confirmed by the Senate.
The PDP crisis was so serious that five aggrieved governors left the party for the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), while 35 members of the House of Representatives followed suit. The same scenario is expected with an imminent defection of some members of the Senate. It seemed Tukur’s sins were so many and grave that even his exit did not change the minds of defectors and would-be defectors in the party.
His appointment, forced exit, and replacement barely two days after says a lot about the credibility of PDP’s appointments into public and political offices.
We do not know why President Jonathan sent him to railways as board chairman. If he did that on the assumption that the corporation is not important and its board could be chaired by just anyone, then that is a grievous mistake. The railway is as important and strategic as it could be, especially these days and its contribution to the transportation sector is unquantifiable.
What NRC needs is a dynamic mind that will reengineer it in tune with contemporary demands and not a man being recycled just as job for the boys. How can we expect good performance in railways from someone who had failed in his previous job as chairman of the PDP? It is a pity that the PDP-led Federal Government has once again exhibited a lack of service direction by appointing an old man like Tukur to a strategic national office without consideration for merit.
Age is definitely not on his side; at 78, he is too tired for any public office. What new things is he going to introduce in the NRC? Are we saying we are recycling such people in public offices due to a dearth of young people to take up such appointments?
Perhaps it was due to joblessness usually attributed to most politicians. Even President Jonathan confirmed this situation in his speech at the Aso Villa Chapel, State House, Abuja, when he said “we are in politics due to joblessness”. And he stated further, “most of us who are in politics are not supposed to be there but because we have no other thing to do”. How else do we explain the appointment of Tukur other than that unless recycled, he would be jobless?
But then, it is unthinkable that such an important arm of transport sector like the railway corporation should be handed over to a man who was removed for high-handedness and incompetence.
We can only hope that the President is not preparing the ground for another round of crisis in the corporation? The job in the NRC is not, and should not be, a job for the boys or the likes of Bamanga Tukur. We smell a rat with the appointment coming in a year before general elections.
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