THE Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria (AMLSN) has rejected the appointment of Dr. Babajide Salako as Chairman of Medical Laboratory Science Council of Nigeria (MLSCN).
AMLS President, Dr. Casmir Ifeanyi, who disclosed this at a press conference on Monday, February 19 in Abuja insisted that Salako’s appointment breached the Act setting up the MLSCN and, therefore, urged President Bola Tinubu to withdraw his appointment and nominate another qualified person to replace him.
Ifeanyi stated that Salako did not met the criteria for appointment to the position, as spelt out in Section 3, subsection 1(a) of the Act CAP (M25) LFN 2004, which provides that the chairman of MLSCN must be a “qualified Fellow of the Council with five years post qualification experience.”
The Act also stipulates that :“The person shall be appointed by the President on the recommendation of the minister from a list of names of the Fellows submitted by the Council (in this Act referred to as ‘the Association’).”
Ifeanyi said Salako’s appointment has not fulfilled any of the criteria stipulated in Section 3 of the Act and that the association was
shocked “at the brazen violation of the above section of the law without recourse to the list of names submitted by the Council in compliance with the law.”
He added: “We call on the National Assembly to investigate the appointment of Salako as Chairman of the Governing Board of MLSCN.
“The message conveyed by the purported appointment is simply that laws made by the legislature and duly signed by the President can be disobeyed by highly-placed government officials only to achieve private goals.”
He also called on the President to urgently correct the mistake by retracting Salako’s appointment and adhering to the law in announcing his replacement.
