Council Fails to meet as Balance of Power comes into Question

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Who presides over the executive council meeting on Wednesday following the abrupt return of President Umaru Yar'Adua early Wednesday was an issue that created palpable tension in Aso Rock. As early as 9.30a.m, most of the ministers and top aides to President Umaru Yar'Adua including Mustapha Onoyebveta, the ADC and Yusuf Tilde, the chief security officer to the president, started arriving for the 10.00a.m meeting. The ADC and the CSO were cited moving away from the entrance to the council chambers in the direction of the State House Mosque where they had discussions with other aides of the president, including Yakubu Tanimu, chief economic adviser, and Inuwa Baba, senior special assistant on special duties to Yar'Adua.

The ministers, cabinet staff and presidential aides who arrived before the 10.00a.m time for the meeting had to wait for two hours and ten minutes in frustration at the council chambers before the announcement for the postponement of the meeting was made by Yayale Ahmed, secretary to the government of the federation who was also the leader of the six-man ministerial team to visit Yar'Adua in Saudi Arabia. "Honourable ministers, ladies and gentlemen, the acting president has directed that we should announce that this council meeting be postponed, accordingly we are to go back to our offices but a special meeting with the acting president with all ministers in attendance is been convened at 2p.m in the acting president's conference room, of course attendance is mandatory. Thank you and God bless," Yayale said.

The postponement followed tension that greeted the early morning arrival of President Umaru Yar'Adua from Saudi Arabia where he was receiving medical treatment for over three months.The postponement is an indication that all may not be well with Yar'Adua who was brought into the country in an air ambulance from Saudi Arabia and also driven in an ambulance into the Presidential Villa, Abuja in the early hours of Wednesday. Fielding questions from State House correspondents, after the postponement of the special meeting with Jonathan, Dora Akunyili, minister of information and communications, confirmed the arrival of President Yar'Adua but noted that she only heard the news of the president's arrival on the American Cable News Network (CNN) this morning (Wednesday).

She disclosed that "today's (Wednesday) meeting is not shifted to 2.00p.m, the meeting would no longer hold, but at 2.00p.m we ministers are going to hold a meeting with the acting president in his conference room". Asked who is now in-charge since Yar'Adua has returned, instead of responding to the question, Akunyili urged the reporters to pray for the quick recovery of the ailing president. "Pray for the full and quick recovery of the president and not who is acting," she appealed.Akunyili reprimanded the reporters for asking her if President Yar'Adua was fit to rule, saying "why would you ask me that kind of question, I am not a doctor". Prior to the 10.00a.m time of the meeting, there was palpable tension in the council chambers of the Aso Rock Villa, the venue of the Wednesday's meeting, as ministers, presidential aides and journalists waited under a very tensed atmosphere to see how the drama would unfold.

The usual boisterous, hilarious, the pumping of hands, back slapping and the usual photo poses by ministers before journalists were all absent at Wednesday's meeting.The atmosphere showed a house divided against itself as some key ministers constantly consulted among themselves while the over two hours' waiting game lasted. It was very obvious at the meeting that the focus was who was going to preside: Jonathan or Yar'Adua, and where the acting president would sit should the president walk into the chambers and all that. "These were the core questions that many people at the chambers were asking but the announcement by Yayale somehow doused the tension," a senior presidential aide told BusinessDay.

Source: Council fails to meet as balance of power comes into question

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