A research by an Abuja-based Non-Governmental Organisation, Governance and Sustainable Development Initiatives, has revealed that Anambra State is the biggest beneficiary of federal appointments in the last two years.

This is contrary to an earlier summary of federal appointments presented by the office of the Secretary to The Federal Government in May which indicated that Delta was the leading state in terms of federal appointments.

The SGF presented the summary of federal appointees as proof that efforts of the administration in the last two years to correct the outstanding imbalances in federal appointments had begun to yield the desired results. It was presented as part of the Mid-Term Report of the Jonathan administration.

But the appraisal and detailed analysis of the list by GSDI punched holes in the report. The NGO called to question the integrity of the data and the "inconsistencies contained in it." It said further that the data analysis and deductions "were on the basis of the narrow prism of geo-political balancing."

The NGO readily points to the "duplication and wrong listing" of appointees by the SGF. It said: "For a start, the total number of appointees involved in the SGF analysis was not 551 but 545, as four appointees namely - Alhaji Yusuf Usman Abdallah, DG National Commission for Museums and Monuments; Mr Adebayo Atoyebi, Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Press Council; Alhaji Abubakar H. Tanko, Conservator General of the National Parks and Dr Kabir M. Anka, Medical Director Federal Medical Center, Gusau,  from  Kano, Kwara, Niger and Zamfara States respectively, had their names and designations repeated.

"Professor Chinedu Nebo from Enugu State, already appointed as Minister of Power, was still listed as the Vice- Chancellor of the Federal University, Oye-Ekiti.  Rivers State, which the summary indicates as having 16 political appointees, had only 15 on the list. Professor Oye Ibidapo Obe was listed under Lagos whereas he is from Osun State."

The GSDI pointed to the "grave omission or non-inclusion" of key appointees of certain federal agencies. It said: "For the NNPC and the CBN, what was listed were only the Group Managing Director and the Governor respectively. None of the six group executive directors of the NNPC or the four deputy governors of the CBN was listed. The subsidiary companies of the NNPC are also missing."

The NGO queried why career-based appointments were lumped with political appointments and faulted the non-inclusion of ministers, advisers and appointments arising from electoral processes.

After including the ministerial/political appointments, top bureaucratic appointments and top legislative positions, the NGO's list of the all-comers appointees went up from 545 to 680.
When all the political appointments at the ministerial, bureaucratic and legislative levels were added to the SGF data, the leading states in terms of total appointments changed.

Anambra displaced Delta as number one with 35 slots. Other leading states according to the GSDI study were Delta (34),  Kaduna (29), Kogi (28), Kwara (28), Ogun (27), Osun (27), Edo (26), Adamawa (26), Imo (24), Katsina (24) and Bayelsa (24), while States with the least number of total appointments  were:  Zamfara (7), Taraba (7), Lagos (9), Ebonyi (9), Yobe (11), and Sokoto (11).

The NGO's report was signed by its CEO, Dr Goke Adegoroye, a retired Federal Permanent Secretary and pioneer Director General of the Bureau of Public Service Reforms.