NGF election: Rejection of results, bad omen for 2015 –ACN

[Mirror]

The rejection of last Friday's result of the election to elect the chairman of the Nigeria Governors' Forum (NGF) by a faction of the governors has been described as a bad omen for the 2015 elections.

The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), which stated this yesterday in a press statement issued in Lagos by its National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed, added that the governors who rejected the result that returned Rivers State governor, Rotimi Amaechi, were "undoubtedly acting the script written for them by the presidency and the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)."

Mohammed added that the message the Presidency is sending out to the nation through the "puppet governors" was that "the result of the 2015 elections would only be valid if a certain candidate emerges the winner."

His words: "If an election involving only 35 governors can generate so much controversy and threaten to overheat the polity, what will happen when millions of Nigerians vote in 2015? Is this how President Goodluck Jonathan, who is the godfather of the losing governors, has been sanitising the electoral process as he has been enthusing?

''The show of shame by the bad losers supporting Plateau State governor, Jonah Jang, of course at the behest of the presidency, is an extension of the threat that has been issued by some rabble-rousers that it is either Jonathan for 2015 or there will be no Nigeria as we know it."

Saying that this was the Laurent Gbagbo Option that plunged Cote d'Ivoire into a crisis in which it is yet to fully emerge and which the governors were clamouring for, the ACN said that the governors must urgently be called to order.

It said: "Governors who participated willingly and fully in the NGF election have suddenly turned around and called the election a fraud after their candidate has lost. What were they thinking when they voted? Could it be that they were so sure that their armtwisting tactics had worked and hence were sure of victory, only to be drubbed? Did they deviate from the presidency's script that they should only use the consensus they extracted from unwilling governors instead of an election to determine the NGF chairmanship?

"If they realised the ballot papers were not serialised, as the bad losers later claimed, why did they participate in the election? Couldn't they have raised an objection and refused to participate?

"Were they dragged to the venue of the polls screaming and kicking? If so, where is the evidence that they were forced to act against their will?''

The ACN equivocally condemned the meddlesomeness of the Presidency in the NGF election and particularly criticised President Jonathan, who as the leader of his party and of the country, has expended so much of the little goodwill he has on the NGF elections.

The party noted that despite the belated and "tepid denial" by the Presidency, it was an open secret that the arrowhead of the pro-Jonathan governors, Governor Godswill Akpabio was acting at the behest of the presidency. Muhammed added that what Jonathan had done by his meddlesomeness was to stake his presidency on the NGF elections, "thereby making the elections a referendum on his leadership of his party and country."

He added: "In both instances, he got the outcome he deserved: A leader who cannot hold his party together cannot hold a nation together. And here are some of the lessons that the presidency should learn, if it so wishes, from the outcome of the NGF elections – There is always a limit to hubris and the use of naked power against perceived opponents. Needless to say that latent power is more potent than naked power.

"A leader should never do things just because he can. The presidency and the ruling party have lost control of themselves. They are bound to also lose control of the nation – democratically – in 2015. Make no mistake about it!''

National Mirror