‘FEC meeting should be held every week’ – Presidency

Femi Adesina, the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari, has defended the President’s decision to cancel the Federal Executive Council (FEC) Meeting on Wednesday.

According to him, no law stipulated that FEC must meet every week.

He stated this when he featured on Channels Television’s Politics Today hosted by Seun Okinbaolye on Wednesday night.

The presidential spokesman said concerns about its implications were uncalled for.

He said: “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.

“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.

But Adesina dismissed the concerns, saying that the President was 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.

“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,” 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.