For the first time since the election
that caused a division in the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, almost all
the 36 state governors converged on the Presidential Villa, Abuja on
Wednesday for a mid-term dinner organised by President Goodluck
Jonathan.
The two main antagonists in the NGF
crisis Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State, who won the May 24
election of the forum and Governor Jonah Jang of Plateau State, who
leads a faction of the group- attended the event.
Although Jang and members of his
faction were already seated before the arrival of the President which
signalled the commencement of the dinner, Amaechi and his loyalists
arrived at the same time shortly after the event had started.
A mild drama however played out when
Amaechi, who cancelled a meeting of the NGF earlier scheduled for 8pm
on Wednesday, joined the table where Governor Godswill Akpabio of Akwa
Ibom State and others were already seated.
In the process of exchanging pleasantries, Amaechi was heard pointing to Akpabio and saying, “No, you can never be a democrat.”
Some governors in the Amaechi faction
were initially seated among journalists at the back of the hall before
they were ushered in to the front where seats were reserved for them.
The other governors in attendance
were those of Niger, Lagos, Nasarawa, Imo, Edo, Adamawa, Zamfara,
Ogun, Kano, Ekiti and Jigawa.
Others were the governors of Sokoto, Cross River, Bauchi, Abia, Plateau, Kogi, Ebonyi , Ondo, Delta, Anambra and Kaduna states.
The acting governor of Taraba State
and the deputy governors of Bayelsa, Kwara, Katsina, Benue and Gombe
States were also in attendance.
Speaker of the House of
Representatives, Alhaji Aminu Tambuwwal, was however absent at the
dinner attended by the President of the Senate, David Mark; and his
deputy, Ike Ekweremadu.
The dinner was still ongoing at the time of filing this report.
Before the cancellation of the NGF
meeting, some of the Pro-Amaechi governors had converged on the Rivers
State Governor’s Lodge, Asokoro, where they took the final decision to
attend the dinner.
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