Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja

This week’s Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting was put off yesterday, making it the sixth time the council meeting did not hold in the life of the current administration.

READ ALSO: Wednesday’s FEC meeting cancelled

The last time the meeting was put off was on June 20, due to the Sallah public holiday and it was the day President Muhammadu Buhari signed the 2018 budget into law.

No official reason was given for the cancellation of the meeting, but Daily Sun’s findings revealed that the meeting, which was originally scheduled for yesterday, was cancelled late Tuesday night.

A source, who pleaded anonymity, as there was no authorisation to speak on the matter, said the meeting was cancelled because both President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, were not in town.

President Muhammadu Buhari just concluded a three-day visit to The Netherlands. He was the only world leader invited to deliver a keynote address at the country’s 20th anniversary of the adoption of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), at The Hague.

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, on the other hand, was in Sokoto over the recent killings and violent attacks on Gandi, and Katsina, where he condoled, on behalf of the Federal Government, with the people affected by the tragic flooding in the State. Osinbajo also commissioned the new ultra-modern BUA cement factory and 32MW power plant in Sokoto.

Osinbajo, on Tuesday night, made an unscheduled stop at the border town of Jibia in Katsina State, where 44 lives were lost, following the rainstorms that wreaked havoc in the area, on Monday.

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The fifth council meeting was put off due to the public holiday declared by the federal government to celebrate the Sallah, marking the end of the Ramadan month.

On Wednesday, April 4, the meeting was put off due to the public holiday declared on March 30, and Monday, April 2 because of the Easter celebration.

Also, on Wednesday, February 28, the meeting was put off, according to the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, as a result of the participation of President Buhari and a significant number of ministers at a high-level International Conference on Lake Chad Basin, at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja, for the better part of that day.

On August 23, 2017, the FEC meeting, which was supposed to be President Buhari’s first after his 103-day medical vacation, did not hold.

This was 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, and Director-General of National Intelligence Agency, NIA, to present its report to President Buhari.

The FEC meeting of September 6, 2017, was also cancelled due to what the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said was inadequate time to prepare the documents for the meeting.

The two day public holiday declared for the Eid-el-Kabir celebrations, he said had left little or no time to prepare for the weekly meeting.