Why Northern governor's can’t meet in Kaduna
Governor Dr. Muazu Babangida Aliyu,
A top source said several planned meetings of the Forum were postponed since last July because Kaduna State governor Patrick Ibrahim Yakowa said he could not guarantee its security. Since the 1970s, the Forum had always held its meetings in Kaduna, except for once earlier this year when it met in Jos to show solidarity with the people of Plateau State following the communal riots there.
A source at the Forum’s headquarters in Kaduna told Daily Trust that the staffers learnt that the Forum will not meet in Kaduna again anytime soon. Kaduna is the old capital of Northern Nigeria and every state government in the North already has several government lodges and liaison offices there. The staffer said they were not told the reason why the forum will not meet in Kaduna, but they heard that it was due to resistance by the host state governor.
Daily Trust learnt that Yakowa himself acted under pressure from the Presidency, which has been very suspicious of the Forum since its members voted to insist on zoning the presidency to the North. The source said the presidency initially schemed to stop meetings of the Forum from holding because it did not want one of the members, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki of Kwara State, to promote his presidential aspiration at the meeting and possibly win an endorsement. Even after Saraki dropped out of the race with the adoption of Atiku Abubakar as the Northern Political leaders forum’s consensus candidate, the presidency still put pressure on Yakowa to stop the meeting for fear that something unpleasant to Jonathan’s aspiration could still happen there.
In frustration, Daily Trust learnt that Niger State governor Dr. Muazu Babangida Aliyu, who is the forum’s chairman, instead convened a meeting to hold in Abuja last Thursday. Many of the governors had already arrived for the meeting when they learnt of the death the previous night of Edo State governor Adams Oshiomhole’s wife, Clara. The meeting was then postponed in her honour.
However, Secretary to the Niger State Government Dr. Muhammed Kuta Yahaya, who is the Coordinating Chairman, Forum of Secretaries to the Governments of the Northern States, told Daily Trust on telephone yesterday that the meeting is being held in Abuja “for administrative convenience.”
Denying that any dispute informed the change of venue from Kaduna to Abuja, Kuta said it is meant to exploit the fact that governors are going to be in Abuja for another function and it is more convenient to hold the meeting there.
According to Dr Kuta, top on the agenda of the meeting is the resuscitation of New Nigeria Newspapers (NNN), consideration for the provision of Governing and Advisory Councils for the Sir Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation (SABMF) as well as revitalisation of the New Nigeria Development Company (NNDC).
Kuta also said that other issues up for discussion include investment into the Federal Government’s Bond by the management of Sir Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation.
Dr Kuta Yahaya also told Daily Trust that the suggestion that the venue for the forum’s meeting was shifted to Abuja from Kaduna due to pressure from the presidency “is false and not a true reflection of the fact.”
He said he has spoken to the Kaduna State SSG to get his views on the speculation that Governor Yakowa has been ordered to keep out a meeting organized by the governors of the region from holding in the state, but that his counterpart denied any knowledge of such an order.
“For the purpose of keeping the records straight on the issue of putting the venue of the NGF meeting in Abuja, it is primarily for administrative purposes. Having discussed with my colleague in Kaduna, the speculation that the presidency does not want the meeting to hold is false and lacks any iota of truth in it,” he said.
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