President Goodluck Jonathan has approved the appointment of Samuel Ogungbesan as Acting Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).
Ogungbesan, a Coordinating Director at FIRS, replaces Kabiru Mashi who has served as acting Executive Chairman of the agency since 2012.
It would be recalled that previous attempt by President Jonathan to appoint a substantive chairman for FIRS in 2013, a year after Mashi assumed the position in acting capacity was thwarted by the Senate.
Jonathan had nominated Mfon Akpan as successor to Ifueko Omoigui-Okauru, but some Senators, mostly from the Northern part of the country, opposed her nomination.
The Chairman, Senate Committee on the Drugs, Narcotics and Financial Crimes, Victor Lar, had said then that Senators from the Northern part of the country were opposed to the nomination of Akpan as the FIRS boss in the spirit of Federal Character Principle.
He said the longest serving Chairman of the FIRS, David Olorunleke, was from the Southwest, while the last occupant of the position, Mrs. Omoigui-Okauru, was from the South South/South East zone.
He noted that the Acting Chairman of FIRS, Kabir Mashi, from the North, appointed on acting capacity, should be appointed in the spirit of federal character.
“President Goodluck Jonathan has the prerogative of office to appoint any competent person to administer any Federal Government agency in the country. What we are saying is that in the spirit of a true federal character, a Northerner ought to have been nominated as the substantive chairman,” Lar said.
The issue of the appointment of FIRS Chairman reportedly topped the agenda of a meeting of Northern Senators on Wednesday night during which it was resolved that the appointment would be blocked through their numerical strength in the Senate.
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