Northern govs reject pro-Jonathan summit - Take final stand on zoning July 22
Governor of Gombe State Muhammadu Danjuma Goje (left) with Benue State Governor Gabriel Suswan at the Northern Governors’ meeting in Kaduna, yesterday.
Chief Lar had led a delegation to make a case at the meeting in Kaduna for the Northern Governors’ Forum to support the discarding of PDP’s power rotation formula in order to enable President Goodluck Jonathan to contest the 2011 elections on the party’s platform.
Lar’s delegation included former Information Minister Professor Jerry Gana as well as Senator Jonathan Zwingina. After arguing against zoning, Lar announced that his group was organising a summit in Abuja at which a common position on zoning will be adopted.
He then invited the governors to participate in it. But a source at the meeting said the governors overwhelmingly voted to reject the invitation because they feared that the “summit” will recommend the discarding of zoning.
Before Lar’s submission, a delegation of the Northern Political Leaders’ Forum led by retired Police Inspector General Muhammadu Dikko [M.D.] Yusuf had made a submission, in which it passionately urged the governors to support the maintaining of the zoning principle. In Yusuf’s delegation were retired Army Chief Lt. General Muhammadu Inuwa Wushishi, retired Major General David Jemibewon, Alhaji Bello Kirfi, Wazirin Bauchi, Dr. Iorchia Ayu and Prof. Ango Abdullahi.
The governors’ meeting, which lasted until 6pm, decided that every governor should go back to his state and hold a round of consultations, after which the Northern Governors’ Forum will meet again in Kaduna on July 22, 2010 “to take a final decision of whether or not to support zoning and power rotation.”
Daily Trust learnt that prior to yesterday’s meeting, the governors had met the previous night and majority of them argued that the North should insist on upholding the PDP’s “gentleman’s agreement” that ceded the presidential ticket to the region until 2015.
Speaking to reporters at the venue, Dr. Ayu said the Northern Political Leaders’ Forum, of which he is the spokesman, expressed their views on certain national political developments which affect the North, especially the presidency of the country.
Ayu, who is a former Senate President and former Education Minister, said their position on the need to respect the zoning principle will bring stability to the country. He said, “It is only fair that after President Olusegun Obasanjo’s two terms in office which was facilitated by the North, the rest of the country should not be denied its chance just because our son, President Umaru Yaráduá died.”
According to Ayu, they are not against a southern president per se but that “rotation will serve our southern counterparts better.” He advised presidential aspirants from the South to wait till 2015 when the North will support them. “It is a democracy and we cannot compel anybody. We made it clear to the governors that our position is to pursue the unity and stability of Nigeria.”
Professor Jerry Gana, who was the spokesman for Chief Lar’s delegation, also said that their visit to canvass the governors’ support “is normal in a democracy.” He said the same kind of negotiations played out in 1998 when there was agitation for power shift. Gana also said his forum will organise a summit “in order to come out with a consensus on rotation.”
Speaking at the meeting’s opening, Chairman of the Northern Governors Forum, Governor Babangida Aliyu of Niger State had pledged the North’s total support to the Jonathan administration. He said they would “assist the government individually and collectively through good governance and embarking on ways and means of moving the country
forward.” He also said the forum appreciated President Goodluck Jonathan for appointing former Kaduna State governor Mohamed Namadi Sambo as the Vice President.
Aliyu said that the events that preceded Malam Umaru Yaràdua’s death and even after posed threats to the polity but that they have been overcome.
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