By Jude Michael
The recent appointment of directors in agencies and parastatals under the Ministry of Health, by the Minister, Alhaji Idris Pate, has drawn the anger of a South East based youth group, South East Dynamic Youths.
The group, in a press release by its coordinator, Tony Obiogbolu, gave the minister an ultimatum to rescind the appointments for not including any South Easterner, and also called on President Bola Tinubu to wade in.
The group said the recent appointments by Pate deliberately excluded people from the South East, despite having capable hands in all the areas appointments were made.
Obiogbolu in the press release said: ‘While we as youths keep finding reason to believe in Nigeria, in the hope that one day it would treat us fairly and give to us a sense of belonging, some Nigerians have continued to diminish such a hope.
‘Pate, in a manner that defied all logic, and even sense of fairness, decided to appoint directors to a number of agencies under his watch and deliberately excluded worthy Igbo sons and daughters who had demonstrated brilliant scholarship and professionalism in their various fields of endeavour.
‘It did not matter to him that these persons possessed the much needed experience or not. For Pate, because they were Igbo, they were qualified for exclusion.
‘We in the South East Dynamic Youths Movement will not accept such and we are giving Pate two weeks to rescind such an exclusive policy or face the wrath of our youths in calculated measures.’
The group called on President Tinubu to intervene. It also drew the attention of South East governors from the All Progressives Congress (APC), and leaders of the party in the zone, to wade in.
The group said it had submitted petitions to those it urged to intervene, including Governors Hope Uzodinma and Francis Nwifuru of Imo and Ebonyi States; the Deputy National Chairman, Emma Eneukwu and the National Vice Chairman South East, Dr Ijeomah Arodiogbu.
