The All Progressives Congress (APC) on Wednesday took steps towards arriving at modalities for the distribution of political offices, including formation of the cabinet for the incoming government.

But the National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammad, who came out of the meeting at about 8-30p.m. to brief journalists, said the leaders only reviewed the outcome of the governorship elections and  made inputs to the formation of transition committee.

“We are meeting to review the governorship elections, and the elections behind us. We have to prepare for the business of the governance such as preparing the ground for transition committee.”

On whether the leaders  discussed political appointments and the zoning formula, Mohammed said: “I think you have been listening to  a lot of gossip, nothing like that was ever discussed. All we discussed was to make recommendations to the transition committee, where the government should hit the ground runing, what should be immediate, mid-term and long term of government. So, all these issues of minister of and MDAs  are your own imagination.

“This government is not going to be like before, we discussed serious issues and honestly I am telling you what we discussed since morning has been what should be the priority of government. Power sharing was not discussed. I don’t know who gave you information but that was not discussed and we are going to resume the discussion tomorrow.

“We have discussed that also which will interface with the government.
I don’t even know myself, because we only made recommendations to the president-elect.

“We are not satisfied with what happened in Akwa Ibom, what happened in Rivers, we are very dissatisfied with what happened in Taraba State, we are waiting for what is going to happen in Imo and I think tomorrow, the candidate in Taraba State is going to address the press on what happened in her state.”

However, a  party source told THISDAY that THE meeting of the National Working Committee (NWC) was also meant to suggest  workable zoning formula for  the incoming administration.

It said the recommendations of the NWC would in turn be passed to the top leadership and the APC governors’ forum for their input before finally being presented to the National Executive Committee (NEC) for endorsement.
THISDAY  gathered that the NWC meeting is to continue today as it could not conclude deliberation on the issues.

It was learnt that the meeting decided to set up  committees to help in making  appropriate recommendations.

As part of measures by the  incoming administration to curtail government expenditure, the leadership of the APC is considering doing way with the minister of state portfolio as much as possible.

But the move may seem to run counter to the provisions of Section 147 of the constitution which requires that each of the 36 states of the Federation must be given chance to produce at least a minister in the cabinet.

Section 147, subsection 3 stated, “any appointment under subsection 2 of this section by the President shall be be in conformity with the provisions of section  14 subsection 3 of this constitution provided that in giving such to the provisions aforesaid the president shall appoint at least one minister from each state who shall be an indigene of such state.”

THISDAY also gathered that as part of the modalities being proposed for the distribution of ministerial positions is that new administration would be encouraged by the party to cede key ministries to zones or areas that did not benefit from the zoning of principal offices.

Buhari, while speaking to journalists shortly after casting his vote for governorship election last Saturday in Katsina, made  reference to his desire to redirect the budgetary emphasis from mere finding of over-bloated recurrent expenditure to setting more funds aside for capital expenditures.

Buhari said: “ It is very disappointing that the PDP government virtually failed to use those resources to make sure that the economy continue to grow in a sustainable way. I think the worst thing is the lack of accountability and the terrible budgetary system. Imagine that over 90 per cent of Nigerian budget is on recurrent.

“How can you sustain development in a developing country like Nigeria with only about 10 per cent of your income? Things just have to change. There must be more money available for infrastructure, for investment in getting the factories back, employment and getting goods and services for the population,” he said.