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Jonathan intervenes in National Economic Council crisis

By on December 21, 2013

President Goodluck Jonathan on Thursday intervened in the crisis rocking the National Economic Council, which has made it impossible for the body led by Vice-President Namadi Sambo, to meet in the last four months.

The council, which meets once every month, has all the state governors, ministers of Justice, National Planning, Finance and the Federal Capital Territory as well as the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria as members.

It has the constitutional role of giving advice to the President on the economic affairs of the federation, and in particular on measures necessary for the co-ordination of the economic planning efforts or economic programmes of the various governments of the federation.

Sambo had lately been unable to convene the NEC meeting, which always holds on the last Thursday of every month.

A meeting earlier scheduled for last week was hurriedly put off apparently because of the decision of some state governors to confront the vice-president on some economic issues.

Those who attended the meeting called by Jonathan to resolve the crisis included Sambo; Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta State, and his Anambra State counterpart, Mr. Peter Obi.

Some employees at the council’s secretariat also attended the meeting held behind closed doors inside the President’s office.

None of those who attended the meeting spoke to journalists at the end of the troubleshooting effort that lasted for about an hour.

A newspaper (not The PUNCH) had reported that the governors were disturbed by the state of the economy, which they said remained hazy.

They were reported to be planning to raise nine issues any time the NEC meeting was convened.

Some of the issues, according to the report, are the $5bn reportedly missing from the Excess Crude Account, the amount of oil being produced daily and the benchmark price of oil in the 2013 budget.

[Punch]