Obasanjo absent at Council of State meeting

Former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, was absent at the
Council of State meeting, held yesterday at the Council
Chambers in Abuja to discuss possible postponement of the
general elections scheduled for February 14 and 28.
The governors of Benue and Ebonyi states were also absent
and did not send their deputies.
The Council of State consists of the president, the vice
president, all former presidents and heads of state, all former
chief justices, the president of the Senate, the speaker of the
House of Representatives, all state governors, the minister of
Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and the attorney general and
minister of justice.
The body is saddled mainly with advising the president on
national issues, including the elections, security issues and
ratifying key appointments like that of the inspector general of
police.
Those calling for election shift based their call on INEC’s
inability to distribute enough permanent voter cards (PVCs) to
registered voters.
The former heads of state in attendance included General
Yakubu Gowon, Alhaji Shehu Shagari, General Mohammadu
Buhari, General Ibrahim Babangida, Chief Ernest Shonekan and
General Abdulsalami Abubakar.
The Council of State meeting recorded the highest number of
attendance so far.
Others in attendance were Vice President, Namadi Sambo,
Senate President, David Mark, and the Speaker of House of
Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal.
Former chief justices present were Alfa Belgore and Dahiru
Musdafa
State governors in attendance were those of Adamawa, Kano,
Osun, Imo, Nasarawa, Sokoto, Anambra, Niger and Lagos.
Others were Bayelsa, Kogi, Rivers, Kaduna, Enugu, Ogun,
Kebbi, Zamfara, Kwara and Katsina and the acting Governor of
Taraba State.
Also in attendance were governors of Ondo, Plateau, Cross
Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Jigawa, Edo, Delta, Bauchi, Ekiti and
Gombe.
Deputy governors present were those of Abia, Borno and Oyo
states.
The early arrivals for the meeting were all the All Progressives
Congress (APC) governors.
Buhari, who had arrived in the Council Chambers at exactly
11:04 am, was immediately cornered by the Osun State
Governor, Rauf Aregbesola, and engaged in what was
obviously the APC’s strategy as it regards the planned
postponement of the elections.
Despite persuasions by Secretary to the Government of the
Federation (SGF), Anyim Pius Anyim, and the Principal
secretary, Hassan Tukur, Buhari refused to go to the holding
room, where he would have walked with President Goodluck
Jonathan and other past heads of state on the red carpet.
Instead, he went straight to his seat and continued his
discussion with Aregbesola, and it took persuasive prowess of
the Senate president, the SGF, principal secretary and the
state chief of protocol to finally convince him to agree to join
them at about 11:08 am.
The APC governors were also seen in circles putting their
hands on each other’s shoulders, discussing.
One of them became hostile when he noticed journalists trying
to listen to their conversation, warning them to keep off.
There were also a lot of laughs and backslapping among the
governors across party divides. The governors of Ogun, Lagos
and Dr. Doyin Okupe were seen laughing and backslapping.
On a lighter note, the Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi,
tried holding back the National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo
Dasuki, when Anyim called him to put his presentation in
order before the arrival of the president and the former heads
of states and presidents.
Amaechi was overheard accusing the NSA of overlooking the
security challenges in his state, saying what was happening in
his state was not different from the insecurity in the North-
East.