The Governor Chibuike Amaechi’s led Nigeria
Governors’ Forum scheduled to take place yesterday was postponed as 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.
Tags
Politics
Good moves, politics!!!!
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