‘Does he want to be part of a dictatorship?’ — BMO opposes Buhari's critic, Seun Onigbinde’s appointment

The Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) has rejected the appointment of Seun Onigbinde as a technical adviser at the ministry of budget and national planning.

In a statement on Sunday, the group described the appointment as a “travesty that desecrates the honour and integrity of the current administration”.

Onigbinde, the co-founder of BudgIT and a known critic of the Muhammadu Buhari-led government, was recently appointed into the ministry.

In the statement, Niyi Akinsiju, BMO chairman, wondered how Onigbinde would be called to serve in the same administration “he had described in the most unpalatable terms”.

The group said Onigbinde lacked the decency to reject the appointment “if indeed he believed the insults he hurled at Buhari”.

“Seun Onigbinde lacks honour and integrity, which are characters known of President Buhari, and thus could not be in the same team with him,” BMO said.

“He has severally described the President with the most distasteful terms and has shown, especially on social media, that he sees nothing good in the administration of President Buhari.

“Onigbinde had also gone to the shameful extent of describing those who support the President and his administration as ethnic jingoists. He once referred to the President as incompetent, and accused him of being a dictator committing illegality.”

The group accused Onigbinde of lacking in honour and said he was perhaps “browbeating all the while so he could achieve some notice and be sneaked in at night into the same government he publicly threw invectives at”.

“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,” it said.

“Does he now want to serve in this same government and become part of what he had called illegality and dictatorship?” the group asked, adding that “there are countless supporters of the President who are better qualified”.