Posted by By Emeka Mamah on
Kaduna - The 19 Northern Governors' Forum (NGF) are meeting in Kaduna to delibrerate on issues affecting the region including the return of political power to the north in 2007....
Kaduna - The 19 Northern Governors' Forum (NGF) are meeting in Kaduna to delibrerate on issues affecting the region including the return of political power to the north in 2007. All has not been well with the North on both the economic and political fronts since the last seven years of democratic governance in the country.
During the last NGF meeting at the height of the campaign for the extention of President Olusegun Obasanjo's stay in office by another term of four years, the governors disagreed sharply along political lines and could not come out with a common agenda on most of the issues discussed.
Sources told Vanguard that some of the governors were close to exchanging blows to drive home their opposition or support for the ill-fated third term project of President Obasanjo.
However, there are still signs that Thursday's meeting which would be presided over by Governor Abdullahi Adamu of Nassarawa State would end up as a talk shop as most of the governors and their political god fathers have been working at cross purposes to suit their individual or group political aspirations.
Last week's harsh criticisms of both Vice President, Atiku Abubakar and the governors by the Sokoto State Governor, Alhaji Attahiru Bafarawa to the effect that they had not been working to ensure the economic and political emancipation of their zone was seen as some of the signs that the proposed meeting would record little success.
Also, due to quarrels among the All Nigeria People's Party [ANPP]governors, Alhaji Bafarawa had dumped the party and formed the Democratic Peoples Party [DPP] just as his Jigawa state counterpart, Alhaji Saminu
Turaki decamped from ANPP to the People's Democratic Party [PDP].
On the economic front, the NGF had also been unable to resolve the problems of distressed workers of the Kaduna Textile Limited [KTL], the New Nigerian Newspapers as well as the NNDC which fortunes had been nose-diving in recent years.
Most members of NGF including Gombe State which sponsored the Group Managing Director [GMD] had not been able to sign the necessary papers for its recapitalisation as they alleged"that the so-called search for oil by the NNDC is an avenue to enrich certain individuals" and not in the overall interest of the people of the north.
'The NGF could not recapitalise the former Bank of the North. The governors have not known peace since most of them took sides when Governor Joshua Dariye of Plateau State had problems with the Federal Government.