Jang dares Amaechi, summons National Governors Forum meeting
Amaechi and Jang
The Governor Jonah Jang-led faction of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) appears undeterred by the legal moves against it as it has scheduled a meeting for tomorrow in Abuja.
The meeting will discuss issues surrounding the Federation Account and Excess Crude Account, according to a letter of invitation by Jang, the governor of Plateau State.
A member of the NGF and governor of Lagos State, Mr Babatunde Raji Fashola, had dragged Jang to court to compel him from parading himself as the NGF Chairman.
The Governors Forum had broken into two factions one led by Jang and the other by Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State – after a controversial election which saw Amaechi emerging winner by 19-16
votes.
Fashola belongs to the Amaechi group.
Confirming the Jang faction’s meeting to Sunday Vanguard, yesterday, the sole administrator, Osaro Osaro-Onaiwu,
The meeting, described as emergency, it was learnt, would enable the governors loyal to Jang strategize and come up with a position that will be presented to the Committee headed by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, Senator Anyim Pius Anyim.
Fashola, who filed his suit at the Federal Capital Territory High Court, in his capacity as a member of the NGF, asked the court to declare that Jang was not competent to be called the elected chairman of the Forum.
Apart from the Plateau governor, other defendants in the suit are the Director-General of the NGF, Asishana Okauru; the sole administrator appointed by Jang, Osaro Onaiwu; and the Registered Trustees of the NGF vested with the power to administer and manage the trusts of the NGF.
In the writ of summons filed by a former Lagos Attorney General, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo (SAN), and former President, West African Bar Association, Mr Femi Falana (SAN), Fashola maintained that 35 governors participated in the election that returned Amaechi as the NGF chairman.
Conciliatory moves
Attendance at tomorrow’s meeting, according to analysts, last night, will signpost how well the reconciliatory moves which Jang told journalists on Friday he had initiated have gone.
The Plateau governor, at a session with journalists, said he was doing everything to bring every governor to his side.
Said he: “I never knew that the NGF was of much importance until the last controversy among the governors. I never knew I will be the chairman of the forum; the NGF forum is the same thing obtainable in America, we operate the same system, and we all agreed that at the chairman’s expiration after two years, the deputy chairman takes over.
”Amaechi himself was selected by Bukola Saraki in Ilorin; it was a thing of consensus candidate, so Ameachi rising up to re-contest was not part of the agreement. At the election they said 16 governors voted for me, but the next day I held a meeting and 18 governors were in attendance.
”The fact remains that, in NGF we go by consensus candidate and as the ruling party the PDP picked me as their candidate and presented me to the NGF that I have been selected. Amaechi is a son to me, so why should we be enshrouded in misunderstanding with him?”
