It is bad enough that the cabinet meeting is postponed again, the excuses rankle
IT is trite to state that the Presidency is the number one office in the land, and indeed more trite to suggest that the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting chaired by the president is the most important parley of all. This meeting by the president and members of his cabinet and any other person(s) who may be so summoned is a regular forum of the executive arm where all important matters of state are thrashed.
From executive bills and directives to policy papers and job tenders, not a pothole may be filled if the FEC does not meet, discuss and approve. This is how important and crucial this meeting could be in the life of a country.
But several times in the life of the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, this meeting had been botched. At the outset, after a few missed schedules, the presidency had declared that FEC needed not be regular but would be at the behest of the president. This had caused uproar among Nigerians who understand the dire implication of that decision.
To hold FEC meetings at the whims of one man, even if he may be the president, is to run a country on an ad-hoc basis. The FEC meeting must be scheduled and structured and must work like the best Swiss clock. In fact, how the FEC works is perhaps the first marker of how a country is run.
This is why we are peeved that the FEC meeting, the most organic tool of governance and administration of a country is seemingly being handled in a rather lackadaisical manner in the current dispensation. Wednesday’s miss of the cabinet meeting, the second since President Buhari returned from a 104-day medical leave in Britain August 19, has again set the country abuzz as to what ails the president and the question of capacity.
Recall that three consecutive weeks in April, 2017, the president did not attend the FEC meeting.
However, it is not as much the cancellation or postponement of the meetings that draws the ire of the populace as the crass apologia dished out to the world from the presidency.
When the president did not show up on April 12, 2017, information minister, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, had dismissed critics who worried about the president’s health. He had announced that the president had other issues to attend to. Having checked the agenda, the president delegated Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
The following week, April 19, 2017, the FEC meeting was botched once again and the excuse: “Staff of the council secretariat resumed on Tuesday after the Easter holidays, there was no time to prepare and circulate memos to ministers…”
“By practice, the ministers receive council memos two to three days ahead..”
Yet again last week, the holiday excuse popped up. According to the minister, this time: “the two-day public holidays declared for the Eid-el-Kabir celebrations left little or no time to prepare for the weekly meeting.” Could it be that the presidency forgot it had given this excuse last Easter to the chagrin of the populace, or is it that they couldn’t just care what message is conveyed to the world?
Recall that the president has only had one meeting (last week) in over three months. A FEC meeting was also called off the week he returned from UK on account of rodents breaching the president’s office and damaging cables.
There are a few critical points that must be raised here. First, the excuses streaming from the presidency are downright infantile and odious to right-thinking people. These excuses are disgraceful and portray the presidency, nay, Nigeria as an unserious country.
The second point is that the president does not have to attend all meetings; he could brief the vice president and delegate him to preside.
In normal times, the challenges of running the most populous country in Africa could be quite daunting; now in time of economic downturn, it is doubly so. Need we point out that the president needs all the mental and physical energy he can muster as well as concentrated presence of mind to steer the Nigerian ship? His ailment and absences are already telling on the administration and polity. For instance, critical outstanding appointments are not made yet; inter-agency rivalry and even the recent rumpus in the presidency with a sitting minister rebelling openly are sad auguries.
We say once again that it is trite to note that each missed FEC meeting betokens a pile of untreated files, missed opportunities, missed targets and delayed, if not stunted development. Deep introspection is necessary now.
