APC governors: no law compels Buhari to chair FEC

APC governors: no law compels Buhari to chair FEC

It is not compulsory for President Muhammadu Buhari to preside over the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meetings, the All Progressives Congress (APC) governors said yesterday.
The states’ chief executives, under the auspices of the Progressives Governors’ Forum (PGF), spoke last night in Abuja after a meeting with members of the party’s National Working Committee (NWC).
Twenty members of the Forum attended the meeting. The quartet of Akinwumi Ambode (Lagos), Rauf Aregbesola (Osun), Godwin Obaseki (Edo) and Jibrilla Bindo (Adamawa) were absent.
They also resolved to raise money for the day-to-day running of the APC national secretariat and to fund other activities of the party.
Kaduna State Governor Mallam Nasir El-Rufai told reporters after the meeting that the governors and the leadership of the party were not worried about the President’s inability to chair the FEC for three weeks consecutively.
He said at 74, it was a normal thing for the President to have health challenge, pointing out that while his absence from the meeting may not be unconnected with his health situation.
El-Rufai said: “We’re not worried about the development; it is not compulsory for the President to preside over every FEC; that is why our constitution makes provision for the Vice President.
“Mr. President is 74 years old; at that age, it is possible to have one ailment or the other; even I – at 57 – take medication for one ailment or the other. Our prayer is that the President gets better.
“But the reason he has a Vice President is because of a time like this. It may not be as a reason of sickness that he didn’t attend FEC. He may have had other pressing issues to attend to. I have not had to chair every state Executive Council in Kaduna State because the deputy governor is there, if I have other issues of greater priority to attend to.
“We’re not worried yet or have any reason to be worried but I call on every Nigerian to join all of us to pray for the improved health of the President. It has improved in the last few weeks since he came back and we will continue to pray for his health.”
On the decisions taken during yesterday NWC meeting, El-Rufai said: “The most important decision is that henceforth, we will hold a meeting here at the national secretariat once every month.
“This is with a view to increase the interaction, foster relations between the national and state branches of the party as well as work towards strengthening the party. We also took certain resolutions and the first is that the progressives governors have commitment to work assiduously at strengthening and rebuilding the party and ensuring reconciliation and unification of the party at all levels.
“We have commitment to provide the NWC all the support that they need. We will also engage in fund-raising from our donors and sympathisers of the APC to ensure that the national headquarters of the party and indeed all organs of the party have the wherewithal to continue with the difficult work they have been doing within the party.
“The joint meeting between the NWC and the governors also resolved to that at our next meeting, we are going to look at the arrangements for the midterm convention and put in place the resources needed to ensure that the convention hold as required by our party.”

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