Amidst NGF Tension: Governors Amaechi, Jang, others attend President Jonathan’s dinner
President Goodluck Jonathan
For the first time since the election
that caused a division in the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), 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.
In a brief chat with journalists before
they moved to the Villa, Amaechi said “We have shifted the meeting to
honour the invitation sent to us for dinner by the President. We would
have loved to meet, but we have to honour the President’s invitation.Culled from: The Punch
