Buhari under fresh pressure

• Engages in skeletal public duties

The return of President Muhammadu Buhari from London, United Kingdom, has renewed peoples hope in his leadership but the tasks of performing presidential functions increase the pressure on the president who is still contending with health crisis.  However, the President has seemingly restricted himself to skeletal public functions in order the keep governance running.

Apparently, President Buhari is contending with pressures of actively performing public functions to fulfill the mandate of Nigerians entrusted to him or quit office as some stakeholders in the Nigerian project have been canvassing even after his return from the UK.

Meanwhile, President Buhari has held meeting with service chiefs of the various arms of the military giving them the marching order to strengthen security network and put an end to all acts constituting threats to national security.

The President, however, could not stand the pressure of the long hours of the Federal |executive Council (FEC) meeting this Wednesday, and accordingly, suspended the meeting for this week. He, however, undertook a probably less task of receiving the report of an investigative panel on corruption allegations against former SGF and the controversial Ikoyi money the DG of NIA claimed belonged to the Agency.

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President Muhammadu Buhari has cancelled the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC,) meeting for this week that usually hold on Wednesday. The FEC meeting often commences at 10.00am but the Cabinet Office where the meeting holds at the Presidential Villa was empty this morning.

The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, had explained that theWednesday’s meeting was cancelled  to allow the Investigative Committee headed by the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, on allegations against the suspended Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir Lawal, to present its report to President Buhari, including report of findings on the money recovered in a private building in Ikoyi, Lagos State, which the Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Ayo Oke, admitted belong to the Agency.

“The meeting of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) will not hold today.

“President Muhammadu Buhari, will, however, receive the Report of the investigation committee into the allegations against the suspended Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir Lawal and the Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Ayo Oke, headed by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, at 12 noon, in his office,” Adesina declared in the statement.

The report was received by President Buhari later in the day, though some stakeholders were of the view that the FEC meeting was a more important state function of the day than receiving a committee’s report.
Some other stakeholders have continued to express the need why the president may have to throw in the towel.

They predicate their argument on the statistics that President Buhari spent 103 days on the last medical vacation to UK – Sunday May 7, 2017 to Saturday, August 19, 2017. Between January and March, the present spend 49 days on medical vacation in UK.  From January to August 19, 2017, which is 231 days, the president has spent 153 days on vacation; indicating that he spent 78 days in office within the eight months.

They further contend that after the 103 vacation, the President cannot resume active duties in his office but work from home, then, the president may be confronting pressure from nature on his physical fitness.

Apparently, the president is now in dilemma, isolating between effective performance of public functions and resignation.