Despite the negative reactions generated by President Muhammadu Buhari’s cancellation of Wednesday’s Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina has defended the President saying that he has broken no known law by this move.
A statement by Adesina in the morning of the said Wednesday announced the decision but gave no reason for the cancellation of the meeting which would have been the first attended by the President after his return from a more-than-100 days medical vacation.
Asked about the decision in a telephone interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today, the presidential spokesman said there was nothing to it and that concerns about its implications were uncalled for.
“There is no law that says the Federal Executive Council meeting should hold every week. There is no law that says it must be weekly. Under a past administration, it used to hold once every two weeks,” he said.
“So, there is no law that says it should hold every Wednesday. It depends on what you have on the agenda to discuss. The President is the Chairman of that meeting. So, he has the discretion to hold or not to hold (the meeting).”
President Buhari’s decision to cancel the meeting had led to more questions about his fitness to resume work and carry out his duties effectively.
On Tuesday, news that he would be working from home because rodents had damaged items in his office and that it was under renovation caused a stir and went viral on the social media.
But Mr Adesina dismissed the concerns, saying that the President is strong enough to perform his duties and that the office in his home and the one in his office complex were only a short distance apart in any case.
“The fact that FEC does not hold in one week does not mean anything significant because the President has the discretion to hold or not to hold FEC (meetings),” he said.
Asked if the cancellation of Wednesday’s meeting meant that FEC would no longer be meeting weekly, he said it wasn’t the case, before going on to say that the meeting had not held every week over time in the first case.
“That is not correct. It did not hold every week; when this administration began, it did not hold every week. And right from then, it had been understood that the FEC would hold as often as there are things to discuss,” Mr Adesina said.
Had today’s FEC meeting held and the President attended, it would have been the first he would be presiding over in more than three months.
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo who was the Acting President while he was away presided over the weekly meeting in his absence.
Professor Osinbajo also presided over the FEC meetings that the President missed before travelling to London.
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