Mainagate: Sack Obono-Obla For Contradicting President – Group

The Coalition of North-South Patriots (CNSP) have appealed to the Presidency to relieve Mr. Okoi Obono-Obla of his position as the President’s Special Assistant on Prosecution, for contradicting the president on the issue of the reinstatement of Mr. Abdulrasheed Maina into the federal civil service.

The group in a statement in Abuja on Friday signed by Ali Umoru and Peterson Ibim, National Coordinator and General Secretary, respectively, said that after President Muhammadu Buhari had directed the sack of the embattled former pension boss, Mr. Obono-Obla in an interview with an online newspaper still insisted that it was wrong for Maina to be sacked by the president.

“It is on record that Mr. Obono-Obla has constituted himself into an undue irritant so as to be seen as working. But he has often than not, ridicule himself and the administration.

“His latest misfiring is in the Maina debacle in which he was too eager to speak even without facts of the matter.

“For the avoidance of doubt, he was quoted as saying: “If he has not been found guilty of any offence, I do not see why some people are outraged by his purported reabsorption into the federal civil service.

““If the EFCC declares me wanted, that does not mean that I have been adjudged guilty.

““It is only a court of competent jurisdiction that can adjudge anybody guilty.”

“Obono-Obla’s intransigence is unbelievable even after Mr. President had ordered for the sack of Mr. Maina, he was quoted by Premium Times as saying: “I still stand by my position. Has this man been found guilty by the court of law?

“In as much as we are fighting corruption, we must follow due process.

“You don’t expect me as a lawyer to begin to castigate a man and condemn him when he has not been convicted by the court of law. I was not trying to absolve him of the allegation against him, I was asking ‘has this man been convicted?”

According to the CNSP, “what the aide to Mr. President has shown is that he knows more than the president and such a man is dangerous to the system.

“We appeal to the president to sack Obono-Obla over this and many more misdemeanors. As an aide of the president, he ought to know that once the president has given a directive, his opinion on such matter should be kept private but Mr. Obono-Obla has taken it upon himself to say the president was WRONG while he is RIGHT!”

According to the group, “If Mr. Obono-Obla is allowed to continue in office, it would embolden other appointees of the president to contradict him on matters of policy and directives and this is damaging to the president’s authority and should not be permitted to fester.”