Drama as Buhari shuns folding hands with …….as Obasanjo , Elechi, Suswan 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.