Buhari Shocks APC Govs, Rejects Ministerial List.

PRESIDENT-elect, General Muhammadu
Buhari appeared to have dashed the hopes
of the governors elected on the platform of
the All Progressives Congress (APC) when
he rejected their plans to submit a
ministerial list to him.
The APC governors, led by Governor
Rochas Okorocha of Imo State, had, last
Tuesday, visited Buhari in Abuja to pledge
loyalty and make some demands.
At the meeting, some requests were placed
on the table openly, while the request to
drop the list of possible ministers came up
for discussion behind the closed door.
Sources close to the meeting between the
governors and General Buhari indicated that
the state chief executives came out of the
visit with heavy minds.
Planning to maintain the tradition already
instituted by the Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP) where the state governors as party
leaders in the states are requested to submit
list of possible ministers and Ambassadorial
appointees to the president, the governors
threw the request at Buhari.
But it was learnt that the General rejected
the proposal and declared that the
Constitution does not mandate him to take a
list of ministerial nominees from them.
The president-elect was also said to have
rejected the call for a bailout for the states
that have been unable to pay salaries, with a
source informing Sunday Tribune that the
General flatly rejected the proposal, saying
the he was aware the Federal Government
was not owing the states their allocations.
A source close to the discussion told the
Sunday Tribune that General Buhari told the
governors that those of them in their
second terms could not complain about the
state of government finances, as they have
all been collecting allocations from the
Federal Government all along.
A source in the know said: “The governors
practically went out of the visit with their
tails between their legs. The General first
threw aside the request that he grant bailout
to the states. He told them that the
governors going for second term in office
cannot complain about the state of the
economy, having collected all their
allocations to date from the Federal
Government. He ruled out the possibility of
bailout.
“The General was also very unequivocal
when he was told that the governors want
to submit a ministerial list to him. He clearly
said he cannot go into that discussion. He
insisted that the Constitution does not
mandate him to collect such list from the
governors and that the state chief
executives should concentrate on sourcing
good materials that would help them run
the states adequately.”
The source quoted Buhari as saying that “I
do not think we can discuss that issue of
Ministerial list. The Constitution clearly does
not mandate me to take a list from the
governors. To me, the governors should
concentrate on getting good hands to help
them in discharging their duties in the
states.”
The APC governors had made a meal out of
their meeting with General Buhari last week,
with media reports indicating that they were
in Abuja to submit ministerial lists to the
president-elect. But the sources said that
they left the meeting disappointed, as the
General turned down their two major
requests.