Buhari governing through proxies, Fayose alleges

EKITI State governor, Mr Ayodele Fayose has alleged that President Muhammadu Buhari is governing through proxies and questioned his persistent absence from state functions, especially the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meetings.

Fayose, in a statement on Thursday, said it was apt to ask “whether or not the president was now governing the country by proxy.”

In the statement by his special assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, Fayose said “every day, what we hear is President said this, President said that without seeing the President in any official function and one is prompted to ask; where is the president?”

The governor said it was “becoming obvious that a group of cabal is exercising the powers of the President.

“I saw the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr Babachir Lawal on television responding to his suspension and what came to my mind was that there could actually be many presidents operating in the Buhari’s presidency.

“Perhaps, it is for this reason of possible existence of governments within the government of Buhari that confusion pervades the polity, with the President himself writing letter to the Senate to clear someone of wrongdoing and the same person being suspended three months after on the basis of the same allegation. It is also for this reason that the President nominated Ibrahim Magu to the Senate for confirmation as EFCC Chairman and the DSS, an agency under the Presidency wrote the Senate not to confirm him.

“Most importantly, the President did not attend the FEC meeting last week and the meeting did not hold this week under the flimsy excuse that Easter Break stalled it. How could Easter Break that ended on Monday be responsible for the inability to hold FEC meeting on Wednesday? Definitely, there is more to this than meets the eye.

“It has therefore become necessary that Nigerians hear the voice of their President and see him physically, not through surrogates or the cabal operating behind the scene,” the governor said.

Speaking further, Governor Fayose, who described a President as the face and image of a nation, urged President Buhari to hold regular media chat in which Nigerians can ask questions and offer suggestions on the running of the country.

“Since his first and only media chat was held in December 2015, Nigerians have not had opportunity of seeing their President address them directly and this is not the best approach to governance in a democracy.”