The Labour Party(LP) and its standard bearer in the last presidential election, Peter Obi, have kicked against the offer of board slots to state governors, including those elected on the platform of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) and Labour Party, by President Bola Tinubu.
Kwara State Governor and Chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum, Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq, disclosed at a meeting of the forum in Abuja on Tuesday night that the President asked the governors to nominate competent persons to serve in the boards and parastatals of Federal Government agencies which were dissolved last month.
President Tinubu had earlier announced the dissolution of the governing boards of over 153 agencies, parastatals, institutions and government-owned companies.
The dissolved boards were among the 209 constituted by former President Muhammadu Buhari in December 2017.
No fewer than 2,000 vacant positions on the boards were expected to be filled by new nominees.
Notable agencies include the North-East Development Commission with 12 vacant board slots, Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission with seven board seats; Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, seven; Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria, 21; Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund, 12; National Universities Commission, 21 and Transmission Commission of Nigeria, 14; National Health Insurance Authority,12
Others are the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau, 7; Nigerian Meteorological Agency, seven; Nigerian College of Aviation Technology,8; Nigerian Police Trust Fund, 8; Nigerian Natural Medicine Development Agency,10; Federal Institute of Industrial Research, 11 and National Centre for Technology Management, 11.
Also on the list are the Nigerian Building and Road Research Institute, 11; Nigerian Customs Service, 11; National Pension Commission, 17; National Agency for Prohibition of Trafficking In Persons, 11; National Identity Management Commission, 19; West Africa Examination Council, 8; Niger Delta Development Commission, 13; National Institute of Sports,12; Nigeria Deposit Insurance Company,12; National Bureau of Statistics,15; Federal Inland Revenue Services, 15; Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, 8 and Nigerian Airspace Management Agency,7, among others.
In a communiqué issued at the end of the NGF meeting on Wednesday, Governor Abdulrazaq said the members of the forum resolved to commend the President for extending an opportunity to the governors to nominate board members across the party lines.
The governor also disclosed that that forum received briefings from the National Emergency Management Agency and the Nigerian Meteorological Agency on the cases of flooding across the country and moves adopted so far to curtail them.
