By Mike Odiakose, Abuja

Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, on Monday described the appointment of erstwhile campaign spokesman of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Mr. Daniel Bwala, as President Bola Tinubu’s Special adviser on Public Communication and Media as “a moral aberration.

In a statement signed by HURIWA National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko,  National Coordinator, the group told the President  emphatically that Bwala will labour in vain to communicate any meaningful and tangible achievements of the government to Nigerians due to his notoriety.

“The media of mass communication wouldn’t even take any of his words as believable because of his notoriety in absolutely rubbishing the credentials, integrity and credibility of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu during the presidential campaign in 2023,” HURIWA said.

HURIWA declared that the designation of Bwala as Tinubu’s spokesman is an emphatic statement by the President that public opinion matters little to him.

“How does president Tinubu expect any sane Nigerian to believe any communication out of the mouth of Daniel Bwala, the same person, who as the campaign spokesman of Atiku Abubakar, the PDP presidential flag bearer in the 2023 poll, went to the gutter level of branding the APC presidential candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as someone associated with drug trafficking?

“What has changed between when Bwala was running down Tinubu during the presidential campaign and now that he has gone to grab a presidential appointment?

“The memories of Nigerians are fresh and we remember all the dirty campaigns against the person of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, including tagging him with such a heinous crime in a prime time interview with a TV stations that was watched by over 100 million Nigerians and then the same extensively damaging information on Tinubu circulated on the front pages of major newspapers.

“Mr. President should endeavor to inject respect for ethics and morality in deciding on whom to appoint into Public offices. Sir, you must realise that any attempt to give the impression that the government has no care in the world for public perception of your APC administration, then the essence of governance is inevitably defeated.

“Imagine the same person who made sensational allegations against the president when he was a candidate, now becoming the spokesman of the same President as if Nigerians have no retentive memories.

“This is a moral aberration. Mr. President, if Bwala needed financial assistance, why not give him a legal consultancy to make genuine incomes instead of rubbishing the high office of Special adviser on Public Communication and Media.”

In a related development, HURIWA decried Tinubu’s refusal to drop ex-Lagos lawmaker, Mrs Mojisolaoluwa Alli–Macaulay as Executive Director (Operations) of the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) despite allegations of looting of COVID-19 palliatives.

HURIWA said: “It is a deep-seated act of executive lawlessness for someone with unresolved allegation of official indiscretion to be elevated by President Tinubu to occupy a prime position in the same NSITF whereby one of its heads by name Ngozi Olejeme was on October 22, 2021 arraigned in the Federal High Court over alleged N1 billion fraud.

“NSITF as an agency that has suffered serial cases of heist allegedly committed by appointees, it is therefore insanely immoral for the current President to appoint a lady who as a law maker in Lagos was widely accused of diverting palliatives meant for poor Lagosians.

“Has Nigeria run out of persons without any form of moral baggage of allegations of theft of public funds or assets?”