Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo monday met with Senate President Bukola Saraki, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, and five governors of the All Progressives Congress (APC) behind closed doors at the State House, Abuja, to resolve the rising discontent among APC governors and other stakeholders over the absence of consultations by President Muhammadu Buhari in his federal appointments.

The governors who attended the meeting were Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State, Rochas Okorocha of Imo State, Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara State, Sanni Bello of Niger State, and Jibril Bindow of Adamawa. Osun State Governor Rauf Aregbesola arrived after the meeting had been concluded.
Also in attendance were the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir David, and the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.

Although there was no official statement from the presidency on the two-hour meeting, it was gathered that Buhari who departed the country for Morocco yesterday, had mandated his deputy to meet with the National Assembly leadership and the governors to allay concerns and hold talks with them, after mounting complaints that they had not been carried along on several of the federal appointments previously made by the president.

Feelers from the meeting heightened the suspicion that all may not be well among the front line leaders of the ruling party, as the meeting was said to have been very heated.

Sources  said that the meeting was essentially a meeting involving the governors representing the five geopolitical zones in the country and that Osinbajo had been mandated by Buhari to broaden the scope of consultations by bringing in the governors and National Assembly leaders who had been feeling disenfranchised since the outset of the administration.

Since the APC has no governor in the South-south zone, there was no governor to represent the zone at the meeting.

During the meeting, presidency sources said the issue of board appointments to federal parastatals and ambassadorial nominees was discussed, and the governors made their feelings abundantly clear that they were not happy that they had been shut out in past appointments made by the Buhari administration.

Also, the sources said party unity and the state of the party was emphasised by the vice-president against the backdrop of deepening cracks in the APC.

After airing their grievances, it was agreed that a committee head by the SGF, which had recently drawn up a list of nominees to the boards of federal parastatals, would be reviewed by the governors.

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