President Goodluck Jonathan is expected to meet the 36 state governors and security chiefs on Wednesday (today) in continuation of his administration’s efforts at ending the security challenges in parts of the country.
The enlarged meeting of the National Security Council is a follow-up to an earlier one the President had with the Peoples Democratic Party governors on Thursday.
The All Progressives Congress governors had stayed away from the first meeting because their party leadership informed them that an official of the Presidency called one of them to announce the postponement of the Thursday meeting.
However, to ensure that its governors attended the rescheduled meeting, the APC shifted its state congresses earlier fixed for Wednesday (today) to Saturday.
But there were concerns in the Presidency that the meeting could turn out to be a stormy session if Adamawa State Governor, Murtala Nyako, decided to confront the President with the allegations he made in a memo he addressed to his colleagues in the Northern Governors’ Forum.
Nyako, in the memo, had accused the President of carrying out genocide against the North in the Federal Government’s fight against insurgency.
He had also accused the present administration of allegedly being the most corrupt and greedy administration in the history of the country.
The content of the memo has already been slated for discussion by the Northern state governors on Thursday alongside the outcome of the President’s meeting with the governors.
“There is no way Nyako will make such inflammatory remarks against the government and the issue will not come up during the meeting. Either he attends personally or he sends his deputy, the issues raised in the memo will definitely come up for discussion,” he said.
The APC is known to be highly displeased with Jonathan’s campaign against Boko Haram insurgents in the North-East.
Only on Monday, its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed, said the Federal Government’s war against insurgency was unconvincing.
Mohammed had argued that recent statements credited to the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party and the alleged actions of Jonathan were enough to convince members of the APC and other Nigerians that the PDP was not telling all it knew about the insurgency.
He added, “The statement credited to the Governor of Akwa Ibom, Godswill Akpabio, to the effect that President Jonathan should sack the three governors of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states is worrisome because it will give the PDP an advantage in 2015.
“That again gives us concern that probably the manner the government has been handling the Boko Haram insurgency has been with a view to 2015 elections.”
A Presidency source however told our correspondent on Tuesday that the enlarged meeting would review latest incidents in the country, especially as they concern security.
Some of the latest incidents are the abduction of schoolgirls in Chibok, Borno State and the bomb explosion in Nyanya bus station in Abuja.
The source added that the meeting might take a position on the emergency rule declared in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe States which expires in May.
There have been divergent opinions on the desirability or otherwise of extending the emergency rule in the affected states with some Northern leaders opposing the move.
The governors of the affected states – Murtala Nyako (Adamawa); Ibrahim Geidam (Yobe) and Governor Kashim Shettima (Borno) – are also of the view that the one-year emergency rule be lifted.
Another Presidency source told our correspondent that President Goodluck Jonathan had not taken any decision on the matter yet.
“The President is committed to listening to the views of all stakeholders before a decision that will be acceptable to all will be taken and that was one of the reasons he insisted at the Thursday meeting with the PDP governors that their APC counterparts must be given the opportunity to be part of the meeting,” he added.
The meeting, according to another source, would listen to the security chiefs and deliberate on their new approach to tackle the insurgency in the country.
The President had hinted while receiving a delegation of Abuja residents who were in the Presidential Villa, Abuja to rejoice with him on Easter Monday that there would be a change in the government’s anti-terrorism tactics.
“Boko Haram will come and go. We are working very hard, we are changing our approaches, God’s willing we will end Boko Haram,” he had said.
Source: Punch
