Federal Character or Favouritism? Tracing Nigeria's Nepotism Debate in Political Appointments, 2023 to Date

Since President Bola Tinubu was sworn in on May 29, 2023, few domestic controversies have proven as persistent, or as politically combustible, as the recurring accusation that his administration's appointments violate Nigeria's constitutional federal character principle.

Section 14(3) of the 1999 Constitution requires that government composition "reflect the federal character of Nigeria" and avoid "predominance of persons from a few states or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups".

Whether Tinubu's government has honoured that provision has been contested almost continuously for two years, producing one of the most sustained governance debates of his presidency.

The Allegations Begin
The nepotism debate surfaced within months of the administration taking office. By September 2023, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) was publicly accusing the president of allotting key appointments, including the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and other senior posts, disproportionately to members of his own Yoruba ethnic group.

That same month, the Arewa Economic Forum, a northern advocacy body, formally cautioned Tinubu over what its chairman, Ibrahim Shehu Dandakata, described as northerners being systematically replaced in finance and ICT leadership roles despite having voted overwhelmingly for the president in 2023.

Businessday's reporting from that period captured the emerging fault line directly, quoting Atiku Abubakar's spokesperson Daniel Bwala describing the pattern as having "earned the status of nepotism pro max," while a legal practitioner separately warned that Tinubu risked repeating what critics called the same regional favouritism attributed to his predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari.

Ndume and the Constitutional Challenge
The controversy escalated into a formal constitutional argument in April 2025, when Borno South Senator Ali Ndume publicly accused the president of non-compliance with Section 14(3), stating plainly that "the figures are there" and that he had personally forwarded appointment data to back his claim. The presidency's response, delivered through the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, rejected the allegation as unfounded, asserting that Tinubu "believes strongly in the unity of Nigeria" and remains guided by fairness across all appointments.

Tribune Online subsequently published a breakdown of ten recent Tinubu appointees and their states of origin in an attempt to test the claim empirically, reflecting how thoroughly the debate had moved from rhetoric into demands for documentary evidence.

Ndume returned to the theme a year later, in April 2026, this time pairing the nepotism charge with criticism of an estimated $9.45 billion in foreign borrowing he said had proceeded without full National Assembly approval, describing himself as "shocked" by an appointments list that had circulated widely on social media .

Presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga again pushed back, insisting Tinubu's appointments were "based on merit, integrity, and national spread" and urging the senator to "avoid misinformation and baseless criticism".

Security Sector Appointments and the Data Dispute

The debate reached a particularly sharp point in November 2024, when the appointment of Major General Olufemi Oluyede as Acting Chief of Army Staff triggered social media allegations that the Yoruba-led administration was favouring its own ethnic group in security leadership.

Presidential aide Sunday Dare responded with what he described as a tabulated fact sheet showing the North had actually received the higher share of security appointments, 15 of 22 total positions, against seven in the South.

This exchange illustrates a recurring pattern throughout the controversy: allegations are frequently met not with concessions but with competing figures, leaving the underlying empirical question, whether appointments are genuinely skewed, contested rather than settled in the public record.

A Government of Reversals
Compounding the nepotism debate has been a separate but related controversy over the sheer volatility of Tinubu's appointment process. Premium Times catalogued at least seven major flip-flops between 2023 and 2025: the withdrawal of Maryam Shetty's ministerial nomination while she sat waiting for Senate screening in August 2023; the replacement of Niger Delta Development Commission nominees within 24 hours of their announcement in September 2023; the withdrawal of Ruby Onwudiwe's Central Bank board nomination in March 2024 following internal party pressure; and, most strikingly, the August 2025 episode in which Muheeba Dankaka was reappointed chair of the Federal Character Commission at 6:35 p.m., only to be replaced by Ayo Omidiran roughly four hours later.

Tribune Online's analysis of this pattern, published in mid-2026, noted dryly that the Federal Character Commission itself, the very body constitutionally charged with policing appointment balance, had at one point acquired two presidentially appointed chairs within four hours.

Policy analyst Veronica Igube of SBM Intelligence characterized the broader pattern as reflecting "a lack of systematic adherence" to due process in appointments generally .

Countervailing Voices
Not every northern political voice has endorsed the nepotism framing. Kaduna South Senator Shehu Sani, while urging Tinubu in April 2025 to avoid ethnic favouritism, simultaneously argued that nepotism under Buhari's administration had been demonstrably worse, pointing to the concentration of northern appointees across the Immigration, Customs, Civil Defence and Police leadership during that period, and accusing some of Tinubu's northern critics of selective outrage.

Veteran columnist writing for TheCable made a related but distinct argument: that the "merit only" defence frequently offered by government supporters is itself a category error, since Nigeria's federal character principle was designed to mean "merit plus equity," not merit as a substitute for regional balance, and that ignoring this design in a plural society "inevitably slows down national integration and worsens political discord".

An Unresolved Argument
Three years into the Tinubu presidency, the nepotism debate remains where it began: an accusation repeated by opposition politicians, regional advocacy groups and civil society organisations, met by presidential denials backed by competing statistics, with no independent, comprehensive audit of appointments by geopolitical zone yet settling the matter definitively in the public domain. What has changed is the debate's scope.

What started in 2023 as scattered criticism of ministerial and CBN-level appointments has, by 2026, expanded to encompass security chiefs, federal commissions, parastatal boards and even the Federal Character Commission itself, an institution whose own leadership churn became, ironically, one of the more vivid illustrations of the disorder critics say plagues the appointment process it exists to safeguard.

Whether Nigeria's next election cycle forces a more rigorous public reckoning with the federal character principle, or whether the nepotism argument simply becomes, as some northern voices already allege of their opposition counterparts, a rhetorical weapon deployed selectively depending on who currently holds power, remains one of the more consequential open questions of this presidency.

Mustapha Bature Sallama
Medical/Science communicator, Private Investigator, Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Analysis,United States Institute of Peace (USIP), [email protected] +233555275880

References
Daily Trust. "How Tinubu's Appointments Raised Dust Over Federal Character, Others." dailytrust.com, April 9, 2025. https://dailytrust.com/how-tinubus-appointments-raised-dust-over-federal-character-others/

The Nigerian Voice. "Urging Tinubu To Eschew Nepotism, And Spread National Appointments Across Nigeria's Six-Geopolitical Zones." thenigerianvoice.com, October 9, 2023. https://www.thenigerianvoice.com/news/326068/urging-tinubu-to-eschew-nepotism-and-spread-national-appoin.html

The Guardian (Nigeria). "Arewa Economic Forum cautions Tinubu nepotism, favouritism in appointments." guardian.ng, August 30, 2023. https://guardian.ng/news/arewa-economic-forum-cautions-tinubu-nepotism-favouritism-in-appointments/

Businessday NG. "Tinubu's appointments split Nigeria." businessday.ng, September 24, 2023. https://businessday.ng/politics/article/tinubus-appointments-split-nigeria/

Premium Times. "Tinubu's appointments not lopsided - FG." premiumtimesng.com, April 11, 2025. https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/787352-tinubus-appointments-not-lopsided-fg.html

Tribune Online. "10 recent appointees of Tinubu's govt and where they come from." tribuneonlineng.com, April 10, 2025. https://tribuneonlineng.com/10-recent-appointees-of-tinubus-govt-and-where-they-come-from/

Arise News. "Senator Ndume Challenges Tinubu On Nepotism, $9.45bn Loans For 'Spurious' Projects." arise.tv, April 9, 2025. https://www.arise.tv/senator-ndume-challenges-tinubu-on-nepotism-9-45bn-loans-for-spurious-projects/

ThisDay. "Presidency Refutes Nepotism Allegations against Tinubu's Administration in Security Appointments." thisdaylive.com, November 17, 2024. https://www.thisdaylive.com/2024/11/03/presidency-refutes-nepotism-allegations-against-tinubus-administration-in-security-appointments/

Premium Times. "Seven times Tinubu flip-flopped on key appointments." premiumtimesng.com, August 14, 2025. https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/814089-seven-times-tinubu-flip-flopped-on-key-appointments.html

Tribune Online. "Tinubu's government of ghosts, doubles and phantom agencies." tribuneonlineng.com. https://tribuneonlineng.com/tinubus-government-of-ghosts-doubles-and-phantom-agencies/

Legit.ng. "Appointment: Shehu Sani Rates Nepotism Under Buhari vs Tinubu." legit.ng, April 19, 2025. https://www.legit.ng/politics/1650862-appointment-shehu-sani-rates-nepotism-buhari-tinubu/

TheCable. "Tinubu and the federal character question." thecable.ng, April 13, 2025. https://www.thecable.ng/tinubu-and-the-federal-character-question/