A political group, Southern Kaduna Renewed Hope Movement of Nigeria, has called on President Bola Tinubu to appoint a minister from the zone in order to correct what it claimed is an age-long marginalization of the area.
The group lamented that Southern Kaduna has experienced severe marginalization in the last eight years of the All Progressives Congress (APC) administration, thereby leading to an imbalanced representation of the region at both the state and federal levels.
The National Coordinator of the group, Yusuf Kanhu, who made the appeal at a news conference on Friday, insisted that the representatives of Kaduna State in the Federal Executive Council should come from the southern part of the state since both the governor and the speaker are from northern and central senatorial parts of the state.
While calling for the equitable distribution of ministerial appointments to the South, the group asked President Tinubu to consider a National Commissioner in the National Population Commission (NPC) and an indigene of Southern Kaduna, Abdulmalik Durunguwa as a minister representing Kaduna State.
The ministerial slot for Kaduna State is yet to be filled after the immediate past governor Nasir El-Rufai, who was earlier nominated, was not cleared by the Senate.
El-Rufai was among the 48 ministerial nominees sent to the Senate by President Tinubu, but he is yet to be cleared by the Senate on the basis of a security report against him.
Following the withholding of his nomination, El-Rufai reportedly met with President Tinubu, who recently swore in 45 new ministers, and told him he was no longer interested in being a minister and recommended that his former commissioner, Jafaru Sani, should replace him.