The governors should never allow wrong impulses to destroy a worthy organisation
The several months of rigmarole that stagnated the affairs of Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) have given way to reason as the People’s Democratic Party’s (PDP) governors behind the pointless altercation have finally embraced peace. At its meeting attended by the sullen PDP governors, the forum, across political divide, belatedly adopted Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State as its authentic chairman, duly elected from its May 24, 2013 election. An unnamed governor reportedly moved the motion that the forum should agree that Amaechi won the 2013 election and this was unanimously adopted.
At the election held in May 2013, 35 governors, with one absentee, voted to elect the first among equals. Amaechi scored 19 votes to defeat Governor Jonah Jang of Plateau State who scored 16. But, in a condescending move in mockery of democratic values, the 16 PDP governors rejected the election result and subsequently formed a parallel PDP Governors Forum (PDPGF), with Jang becoming factional chairman. If indeed politics is a game of numbers, we reasonably concluded then in our editorial that arithmetically, 19 is more than 16 and that the PDP-16 were wrong in their dishonourable rejection of that free and fair NGF election.
Our position that justice shall prevail in the NGF wrangling, no matter how long, came to pass with the mixed attendance across party divides, of the warring factions. The small but impressive attendance at the meeting validated the decision for Amaechi’s adoption. Amaechi attended the meeting alongside Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State; Rauf Aregbesola (Osun) and Abdul-Aziz Yari of Zamfara State. Other members of his group in attendance were: Kashim Shettima (Borno); Abiola Ajumobi (Oyo); Umar Ganduje, current deputy governor and now governor-elect of Kano State, and the deputy governor of Nasarawa State who represented Governor Umaru Al-Makura.
The Jang group in attendance included Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State and also chairman of the now defunct PDPGF. Others were Isa Yuguda (Bauchi); Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan (Delta); Babangida Aliyu (Niger); Ramalan Yero (Kaduna); Usman Dakingari (Kebbi); Gabriel Suswam (Benue) and the deputy governor of Kogi State who represented his governor.
It is gratifying that the NGF crisis is now finally over, even if in the twilight of this administration. However, such disgraceful conduct put up by the PDP governors, obviously with the mammoth support of President Goodluck Jonathan, really soiled the reputation of the factional PDPGF since they were perceived as democrats and believed to be democratically elected. It is good that new sense of reason has definitely put their contempt for representative values in context at the appropriate time.
Despite subsequent media denials by Jang of his not adopting Amaechi at the recent meeting, which we considered to be an after-thought because he reportedly sent in an apology for his inability to attend the meeting, the truth remains that the Jang group at the meeting led by Akpabio actually did the needful, even though belatedly, meaning that they realised that what they did then was done out of malice and self-centredness, and not motivated by any principle.
The NGF crisis marked, a long time ago, the beginning of the end of the PDP government at the centre and in most of the states lost by the party in the just-concluded general elections. The outgoing ruling party also lost it a long while ago in the court of public opinion, with its members’ random impunity and haughty disposition in power.
If not for the warped federal structure that makes the component states in the country to rely on the central government for survival, the kind of unwarranted impunity in the NGF, a legitimate pressure group peopled by governors, would not have occurred. This is because President Jonathan recklessly deployed federal might to subvert NGF’s internal democracy and by extension, its general affairs. Now that the matter seems to have been resolved, we can only hope that such disruptive tendencies will not recur in the coming dispensation because it is not worthy of emulation. It is an object for the incoming regime if it truly intends to take the nation to the next level.
We are happy that mathematics in Nigerian politics, through this warring NGF PDP members’ recant, has now regained its integrity. Jang should stop his delusion of grandeur that made him erroneously embark on spiritual hallucination when he went to church to do thanksgiving over an election that he lost but would not publicly admit. His group members’ capitulating presence at the meeting and their adoption of Amaechi as winner of that election shows the futility of impunity. What a lesson!
