The Federal Character Commission (FCC) was established through Act No 34 of the 1996 to promote, monitor, and enforce compliance with the principles of the proportional sharing of all the bureaucratic, economic, media and political posts at all levels of governments.
This act was grafted into section 14,3,of the 1999 constitution to ensure that the composition of the government of the federation or any other agencies of governments and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such a manner as to reflect the federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity and also to command national loyalty, thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from few states or a few ethnic or other sectional groups in that government or any of its agencies.
This enactment, the establishments of a commission to enforce it, with its enshrinements in the constitution shows the emphases that Nigerians have for their unity through constitutional tools. Various administrations since 1999 observed this constitutional principles with varying levels of fidelity.
However, since 2015 when President Muhammadu Buhari came to power, the principles seems to have been more strengthened rather than being neglected or jettisoned.
Today, this assertion can be verified true by the performance of the present chairman of the commission, Dr Muheeba Farida Dankaka, through her implementations and monitoring reforms which has ensured almost 90 percent compliance.
This has made many to stress that institutions like the Federal Character Commission can be run better to achieve its mandate by able leadership.
She has basically intervened by hearing the voices and complaints of Nigerians clearly by upholding the constitution and the law. She has chosen not to condone extreme nepotism which is an act capable of creating an atmosphere of discontent, hatred, disloyalty, disenchantment and separatist reflexes among victimised groups.
It is on record that during her leadership of the FCC, so far, the commission has never been found wanting for any constitutional breach as regards its actions and have accounted for all its actions and duties to the country by making sure the mandates given to her by the President by making sure his promise of addressing the litanies lopsided appointments are been addressed and never to reoccur again was achieved.
The questions many are asking and begging for answers are, what have the chairman of the commission done wrong that she has consistently been vilified by faceless insiders at the commission creating crisis time and over again when there was no basis for it? First is the heated crisis over a forged certificate belonging to the chairman that after investigations was proven and verified to be false. Secondly, was the issue of two northerners serving as chairman and secretary of the commission at the same time, a claim that was made to cause crisis which its sponsors intended to use to vilify the chairman thereby stopping her reforms actions at the commission. Thirdly was the alleged non carrying along of the commissioners in the scheme of things at the commission and the alleged contract sleaze by the chairman which has died down after it was discovered to be false.
Today, in continuation of the media war against the chairman, Nigerians woke up to a report in the Saturday Telegraph Newspaper in its cover page to a story of an alleged crisis festering at the commission with the alleged resignations of 3 commissioners over irreconcilable differences with the chairman based on their personal principles.
The newspaper reportage alleged that the three commissioners who have allegedly notified the commission of their intentions to resign reasons be that the chairman is running the FCC against the act which set it up.
According to the Saturday Telegragh newspapers, the source of the story is a faceless and an unmentioned commissioner at the commission who would rather wants to remain unanonimous. The faceless commissioner also revealed the nomenclatures and states of the resigning commissioners as from Enugu and Kebbi state respectively. But the newspaper also revealed that when they contacted the said resigning commissioners about the notice of their resignations, they both denied the allegations. One of this alleged resigning commissioner disclosed that he is even out of the country and cannot have personally tendered his resignation or disclose this information to anyone. The second commissioner when contacted was surprised by the source of this false story.
The chairman of the commission has for the past two weeks been on official tour to the south-east part of the country in company of some numbers of the commissioner and this was also disclosed by the director of communication at the commission. Plenary meetings was held on Wednesday, all the commissioner were present and nothing like the issue of intended or solicited resignations came up or was raised.
For the avoidance of doubt, Nigerians should by now have seen the lies and fake stories coming out of the Federal Character Commission by some faceless groups as been only intended for calling a dog a bad name in order to hang it. This chairman never deserved what she is getting from the activities of this sponsored faceless groups. This is a woman who has been working assiduously hard to ensure that through the commissions activities, our nations unity in diversity would be strengthened and enhanced and most importantly fulfil our President’s mandate.
The security agencies must now have seen vividly the intentions of this faceless groups and it is expected that they wake up to their responsibilities of unmasking the identity of this faceless actors by bringing them to book.
To many now, the offence of the chairman is only for the fact that she is from the north and to some are, reforms programmes at the commission has become a bitter pill for them to swallow. It is important that they know that for things to be better, we must all embrace and support Dr Muheeba Dankaka for the FCC to live up to its mandates instead of using rumours and lies to bring her down.
Our president is satisfied with the positive reforms been implemented at the commission and he is proud that for the FCC he has enthroned capable leaderships to help it achieve its mandate. It is advisable to the sponsors of this fake and unsubstantiated stories to stop as their lies and intentions have been uncovered by Nigerians.
– Musa Wada writes from Abuja.
