Taiwo Popoola
The Lagos State chapter of the All Progressives Congress, APC, has dismissed claims that President Bola Tinubu is trying to ‘visibilize’ Northern Yorubas.
The party was reacting to a recent article by Farooq Kperogi, who said the appointment of Professor Joash Amupitan as the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, was part of Tinubu’s agenda to visualise Northern Yorubas.
The Lagos APC described Kperogi’s claims as a mischievous spin on Tinubu’s “merit-based leadership”.
The spokesman of the state chapter of APC, Mogaji Seye Oladejo, said it is unfortunate that a respected academic like Kperogi continues to deploy his pen as an instrument of distortion and ethnic mischief rather than truth and reason.
In a statement he signed, Oladejo said: “The attention of the Lagos State Chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has been drawn to yet another of Farooq Kperogi’s increasingly predictable essays titled ‘New INEC Boss and Tinubu’s Visibilization of Northern Yorubas.”
“Professor Kperogi’s piece is a tired rehash of the same ethnic reductionism that has long plagued Nigeria’s political discourse – the lazy assumption that every appointment by a Southern leader must have an ethnic or parochial undertone.
“For a man of supposed intellectual depth, it is disappointing that he conveniently ignores the facts: Professor Joash Amupitan, SAN, was appointed INEC Chairman based on merit, experience, and unimpeachable integrity – not ethnicity.
“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, more than any Nigerian leader in recent history, has built his political career on the principle of inclusion, competence, and reward for merit. His appointments since assuming office reflect the full diversity of Nigeria – across faiths, ethnicities, and regions. To suggest that the appointment of a distinguished legal scholar from Kogi State is some grand “Yorubacentric” project is both dishonest and mischievous.”
Oladejo said it’s instructive that even in his convoluted attempt to assign sinister motives, Kperogi admits that Professor Amupitan is a Christian, has no record of partisanship, and hails from the North Central region.
“Yet, he still labors to frame his appointment as an extension of Yoruba hegemony. That contradiction alone betrays the emptiness of his argument.”
The Lagos APC reminded Kperogi and his echo chamber that Nigeria has moved beyond the provincial politics of suspicion and sectionalism.
He said President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda is driven by competence, not geography, adding that from the South-East to the far North, his cabinet and key appointments speak the language of national balance and capacity, not ethnicity.
He added: “If the learned professor were less obsessed with ethnic framing and more concerned with truth, he would have celebrated the President for giving visibility to a minority group within the North – a gesture that promotes inclusion rather than division. Turning that gesture into an ethnic conspiracy is intellectual bad faith at its worst.
“We also find laughable his insinuation that Tinubu is “visibilizing northern Yorubas” as some ethnic bait. The President needs no ethnic arithmetic to consolidate legitimacy. His pan-Nigerian mandate was freely given by Nigerians who saw beyond tribe or tongue, and who trusted in his capacity to lead a complex nation with wisdom and balance.
“In contrast, Kperogi’s habitual fixation on ethnicity is a relic of the politics of resentment – a tired template for those who cannot comprehend the cosmopolitan and bridge-building nature of President Tinubu’s politics. From his days as Lagos Governor, where his cabinet was a microcosm of Nigeria, to his record of supporting capable leaders across all zones, Tinubu’s nationalism is lived, not theorized.”
The Lagos APC advised armchair commentators to rise above ethnic lenses and appreciate merit when they see it, stressing that Professor Amupitan’s appointment is a win for the law, for competence, and for Nigeria.
“To reduce it to an ethnic calculation is to insult the intelligence of the Nigerian people,” he added.
“In the end, Kperogi’s “Notes from Atlanta” is less a commentary on Tinubu’s leadership and more a confession of his own ethnic anxieties – an attempt to see division where none exists, and to project prejudice onto a leader who has consistently built bridges across Nigeria’s diversity. Nigeria has moved on. Kperogi should too,” the statement added.
