Chaos In Northern Governors Forum Over Jonathan

Source: THEWILL. - thewillnigeria.com
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L-R KOGI STATE GOVERNOR ABUBAKAR IDRIS; SOKOTO STATE GOVERNOR ALIYU MAGATAKARDA WAMAKKO AND NIGER STATE GOVERNOR ALIYU BABANGIDA AT A PREVIOUS MEETING OF THE NORTHERN GOVERNORS FORUM.

Correction: Five Governors were in attendance instead of four as earlier reported.

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 27, (THEWILL) – All is not well at the Northern Governors Forum as a bitter fight over the nomination of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan as Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has engulfed the forum.

The Northern Governors Forum is made up of all the 19 northern state governors irrespective of their political affiliations.

There are 16 PDP governors and 3 from the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP).

THEWILL gathered that a meeting hosted today in Yola, Adamawa State could not hold as at press time because most of the governors shunned the meeting. The five governors and four deputies that represented their bosses could not form a quorum.

This is the first meeting of the forum after the congresses of political parties to elect candidates for the April elections.

The meeting was earlier scheduled to hold at the Banquet Hall of the Government House, Yola, but was quickly moved to the Sebore Farms private residence of the state Governor Murtala Nyarko, where journalists were barred from entering the venue by security aides.

The five Governors present include Chairman of the Forum, Aliyu Babangida (Niger); Sule Lamido (Jigawa), Murtala Nyarko (Adamawa), Dr Bukola Saraki (kwara) and Gabriel Suswan (Benue).

The four deputies are those of Bauchi, Kaduna, Taraba and Sokoto.

The influence of PDP affairs in the forum is believed to be one of the major issues also plaguing the association. The three ANPP State Governors in the forum are Presidential candidate of the ANPP, Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau (Kano); Alhaji Ibrahim Geidam, (Yobe) and Dr. Ali Modu Sheriff (Borno).

The north continues to be divided over the Presidential ambition of President Goodluck Jonathan who is from the South.

A controversial agreement in the PDP confirms a power sharing arrangement between the north and south but is ambiguous on the term limit.

The ruling Peoples Democratic Party leadership after a meeting of its NEC a few months ago said, President Goodluck Jonathan could contest in the April Presidential election if he wanted.

President Jonathan defeated closest rival, ‘Northern Consensus candidate’ and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar by an overwhelming margin at the convention of the PDP to become the ruling party’s Presidential candidate.

The President has received the backing of former northern Presidential aspirants General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida and Kwara State Governor Dr Bukola Saraki.