THE Presidency has hinted why the Weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) failed to hold, on Wednesday, as usual at the Presidential Villa.
In a quick reaction to the development, the Presidency explained that the meeting was put on hold because the Easter holiday affected work of the secretariat, and not because of any ill-health President Muhammadu Buhari.
President Buhari was absent at last Wednesday’s meeting leaving Vice President Yemi Osinbajo to preside over it.
Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, had said Buhari was attending to other issues of national importance and not because of ill-health that he failed to show up.
State House correspondents who had no prior knowledge of the cancellation of the meeting, got to the Council Chambers, venue of the meeting, only to be told that it would not hold.
When reached for comments, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, explained that it was canceled because the council secretariat staff had no opportunity to circulate relevant documents for the meeting because of the Easter holiday.
“I think it is because of the Easter holiday. The secretariat had no time to circulate the necessary documents,” he said.
According to him, there is a requirement in the law which states that the documents must be circulated to concerned individuals before the meeting.
When asked why the documents were not circulated before the holiday since the secretariat knew before hand that there would be a holiday, he explained that as human beings, they also needed the break.
When asked if it was not due to the president’s health, the presidential media aide denied that the cancellation was related to his state of health, saying that it would be wrong to make such assumption, adding: “That will not be fair.”
Shehu added, “The staff on the Council secretariat resumed on Tuesday after the Easter. There was no time to prepare and circulate memos to ministers. By practice, the ministers receive council memos two or three days ahead of meetings because they must read them and sometimes undertake research. It is not a rubber stamp council so everyone must prepare themselves well for debates.”
