Ogun, Imo, Kano have highest number of Buhari’s appointees

President Muhammad Buhari has appointed more people from Ogun, Imo and Kano States than other states, the presidency said Saturday.

The claim came as the president’s office denied a newspaper report that an overwhelming majority of the Mr. Buhari’s appointees were from his native northern region. The BusinessDay report that 81 of the president’s 100 political appointees are northerners is “misleading”, presidential spokesperson, Femi Adesina, said in a statement.

“To claim, suggest or attempt to insinuate that the President’s appointments are tilted in favour of a section of the country is simply untrue and certainly uncharitable,” he said. Mr. Adesina showed a graphical illustration of different states and the number of top appointees from the respective states.

The graph shows that Ogun state has the highest number of appointments with 21, followed by Imo and Kano states with 15 each, and Edo and the president’s home state of Katsina with 14 each.

The Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, has no appointee — the worst case; while Ebonyi and Abia have two each, Kebbi has three, while Zamfara, Sokoto, Oyo, Enugu, Ekiti and Akwa Ibom have four each, has not independently verified those figures, especially whether the list is exhaustive, and if it contains appointments also made by Mr. Buhari’s predecessor. Mr. Adesina picked holes in the newspaper report, saying at least 50 appointees who are not from the north had been left out. “From all records, majority of the President’s appointees across different portfolios are not from the North, as the publication erroneously alleged,” he said.

A spokesperson for BusinessDay could not be immediately reached for comments. Below is a distribution of the number of appointments made by Mr. Buhari from the 36 states and FCT, as tabulated by the presidency.