Lagos | October 13, 2025 — The Lagos State Chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has condemned what it described as another “mischievous and ethnically charged” article by US-based Nigerian academic, Professor Farooq Kperogi, accusing him of deliberately twisting facts to malign President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s merit-driven leadership.
In a strongly worded statement issued on Sunday by the Lagos APC Publicity Secretary, Hon. Seye Oladejo, the party took exception to Kperogi’s latest Notes from Atlanta column titled “New INEC Boss and Tinubu’s Visibilization of Northern Yorubas.”
Oladejo said it was “deeply disappointing” that a respected academic continues to use his platform as a “tool for distortion and division rather than truth and objectivity.”
“Professor Amupitan’s appointment was based on merit, experience, and unimpeachable integrity — not ethnicity,” Oladejo said. “President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, more than any Nigerian leader in recent history, has built his political career on inclusion, competence, and reward for merit.”
He dismissed Kperogi’s argument as “a tired rehash of ethnic reductionism” that has long poisoned Nigeria’s political space, insisting that President Tinubu’s appointments have consistently reflected the nation’s rich diversity across faiths, regions, and ethnic lines.
Tinubu’s Appointments Reflect National Balance
According to the Lagos APC spokesman, it is “dishonest and mischievous” to portray the appointment of Professor Joash Amupitan, SAN, a respected legal scholar from Kogi State, as part of a so-called Yorubacentric project.
“Even in his convoluted logic, Kperogi admits that Professor Amupitan is a Christian, has no record of partisanship, and hails from the North Central region — yet he still labors to frame the appointment as Yoruba dominance. That contradiction alone exposes the emptiness of his argument,” Oladejo said.
He maintained that Nigeria has moved beyond the “provincial politics of suspicion and sectionalism,” noting that Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda is driven by competence and national cohesion, not geography.
A President Without Ethnic Arithmetics
Oladejo further described as “laughable” Kperogi’s claim that Tinubu is “visibilizing northern Yorubas” as an ethnic bait.
“President Tinubu needs no ethnic arithmetic to consolidate his leadership. His pan-Nigerian mandate was freely given by Nigerians who saw beyond tribe or tongue,” he stated.
He reminded Nigerians that from Tinubu’s days as Lagos State Governor, his administration was a reflection of Nigeria’s diversity — with a cabinet that included professionals and technocrats from all parts of the country.
“Tinubu’s nationalism is lived, not theorized. His record speaks louder than any ethnic narrative manufactured in Atlanta,” he added pointedly.
“Nigeria Has Moved On — Kperogi Should Too”
The Lagos APC called on commentators and public intellectuals to “rise above ethnic lenses” and appreciate merit where it exists.
“Professor Amupitan’s appointment is a win for the law, for competence, and for Nigeria. To reduce it to an ethnic calculation is to insult the intelligence of Nigerians,” Oladejo said.
He concluded that Kperogi’s essay says more about his own ethnic anxieties than about Tinubu’s leadership:
“It’s less a critique of governance and more a confession of prejudice — an attempt to see division where none exists. Nigeria has moved on. Kperogi should too.”
