Barely four days after he was appointed as the technical adviser to the Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Clem Agba, the co-founder
Barely four days after he was appointed as the technical adviser to the Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Clem Agba, the co-founder of BudgIT, Seun Onigbinde, has relinquished his appointment and announced his resignation.
He made this announcement on his Medium page, a link of which he shared on his official Twitter handle. Onigbinde said, “Upon further reflections on the furore that has been generated by my new role as the Technical Adviser to the Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, I humbly resign the appointment.”
He thanked the Honourable Minister, Prince Clem Ikanade Agba, for believing in my expertise and the privilege to serve. He said, “I am very grateful to the Honourable Minister, Prince Clem Ikanade Agba, for believing in my expertise and I also thank everyone who sent his or her congratulations to me in the short period. I have also been humbled by the faith and belief that numerous persons have expressed in me.
“My sincere interest is to see a Nigeria that grows and optimises resources for the benefits of all Nigerians. My loyalty to the good cause of our nation, Nigeria compelled me to accept the call to provide technical skills and this experience has more than strengthened it. I also want to wish the Nigerian Government, led by President Muhammadu Buhari, well.
“I will always be of help to the federal government in my capacity as the Director of BudgIT, a critical fiscal transparency group, as I have been to several agencies. I would also work to ensure that BudgIT continues to build civic awareness on the right of every Nigerian to know how public resources are managed.”
The Buhari Media Organisation, BMO, had said that the appointment was a travesty that desecrates the characters of honour and integrity which are the hallmarks of President Muhammadu Buhari and those who are called to serve in his government. In a statement signed by Niyi Akinsiju and Cassidy Madueke, BMO’s Chairman and Secretary respectively, the group wondered how “an imbalanced caustic denigrator of the government of President Buhari would be called to serve in the same administration he had described in the most unpalatable terms.
BMO added that Mr Onigbinde lacked decency and morality to reject the said appointment if indeed he believed in those insults he had publicly hurled at Buhari and his administration.
“We believe that a man must stand for something, and live by it. If Seun was called by anyone to take an appointment in a government he ridiculed and called illegal and dictatorial, he should have turned it down, if he had any decency or morals. Does he now want to serve in this same government and become part of what he had called an illegality and dictatorship?” the group asked.
The group also called on the All Progressives Congress (APC) as a party, to reject the appointment of Seun Onigbinde and call for his ouster from the government.
