The Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi, have taken a swipe against President Bola Tinubu on the proposed offer of board slots to all governors as well as opposition governors.

The proposed offer was revealed in a letter in a governors forum by Kwara state governor and chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum, Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq, at a meeting in Abuja, noting that the President asked all governors to nominate persons to serve in the boards and parastatals of Federal Government agencies.

Reports also have it that the president has given an order to dissolve all of the governing boards of over 153 agencies, parastatals, institutions and government owned companies.

The 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, twelve 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, 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. with over two thousand vacant seat to be occupied.

The letter reads, “Members (of NGF) resolved to commend the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria President, Bola Tinubu for showing leadership by extending the opportunity to governors across party lines, by asking them to nominate competent people from their fold for appointment into boards of parastatals. “The forum received a briefing from the Director Generals of the National Emergency Management Agency and Nigerian Meteorological Agency on the incidence of flooding across the country and deliberated on urgent proactive measures to save lives, livelihood, critical infrastructure and safeguarding national food security.

‘’Members resolved to collaborate with relevant agencies at arriving at a comprehensive and federation response while leveraging the 2023 Seasonal Climate Prediction, Annual Flood Outlook, flood risk maps, and the Climate-Related Disaster Preparedness and Mitigation Strategy.

 “National Emergency Management Agency briefed governors on how to achieve shared goals of building a safer and more resilient Nigeria in the face of the growing rate of occurrence of disasters globally.’’

 “NEMA called on state governors to set up functional State Emergency Management Agencies, Local Emergency Management Committees and community volunteers with adequate legal backing, funding and trained manpower to:

“Support knowledge, assets and experience sharing between states, NEMA and other responsible partners.

“Support the signing of Mutual Aid Agreements between states as disasters hit different geographical spaces at different times.

 “Encourage private sector participation as part of its corporate social responsibility and foster policy alignment and community engagement for Disaster Risk Reduction.’’ “According to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, every United States dollar invested in risk reduction and prevention can save up to $15 in post-disaster recovery.”

Reacting to the president offer of board slots to the opposition governors across party lines, the Labour Party described it as a means to recruit the opposition governments and chieftains into the All Progressive Congress.

According to the Chief Spokesman for Obi-Datti Campaign Council, Yunusa Tanko argued that ‘’will not change the fact that Tinubu’s presidency is an illegitimate government.’’

 He stressed that, “APC is doing everything in their crooked book to ensure they legitimize this government, which we have resisted vehemently. We will only do what is rightfully ours when the court makes its decision and pronouncement.” ‘’But as far as we are concerned, every attempt we see them do is a means to cajole people to believe and legitimize their government. That is the truth about it.’’

 ‘’Sending letters to state governors is part of the process of legitimizing their governance, which we are resisting. At the moment, LP has only one governor. The belief is that the governor may likely dance to their tune.

‘’But the truth about it is that will the APC tell you they don’t have party people in Abia State that they can nominate? Why must they go through the governor to do so? What they are aiming to do is to indirectly co-opt him into their party. That’s the truth.”