A succession crisis has hit the Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC) following the bypassing of the most senior commissioner in the appointment of a successor to the pioneer Chairman, Alhaji (Dr) Jibril Aliyu Yelwa, whose five-year tenure expired last Wednesday, December 4.

Yelwa is leaving with four other commissioners – their tenure also having expired – leaving Dr. (Chief) Adewumi Abitoye, as the only commissioner with a subsisting tenure.

Expectations that Abitoye, whose five-year term expires in February 2015, would be appointed Acting Chairman have, however, been dashed, as the Presidency has opted for a Deputy Director. This has not gone down well with Abitoye’s supporters, who allege ethnic witch-hunt, saying that he should have been given the role instead of going for a comparatively junior officer from the South-East. A former Minister of State for Education, Abitoye is the Federal Commissioner representing the South-West in the (FRC).

“By virtue of his office, management experience, coupled with the fact that he actively provided leadership for one of the Commission’s core directorates, Dr. Abitoye as the most senior executive currently in the service of the Commission is logically the one to act as Chairman pending President’s Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s nomination of a new Chairman and Commissioners to the Senate for screening and ratification. However, in what seems to be the fostering of an Igbo agenda, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation is purportedly nominating a deputy director in the commission to oversee its affairs where the said personality is not the most senior career officer in the service. This act is beginning to polarise the Commission and dividing it across tribal lines,” a source at the FRC told News Express.

Contacted for comments, Abitoye appealed to the Commission’s staff to remain calm and patiently wait for the error to be reversed by the relevant organs of Government. “The Commissioner reinstates his strong belief that the SGF was ill advised on the issue and after proper consultation he would reverse this grave mistake and ugly slap melted out to the South-West region,” his Special Assistant, Mr. Lawrence Olawale-Roberts, told News Express.

•Photo shows aggrieved Fiscal Responsibility Commissioner, Dr. (Chief) Adewumi Abitoye.