Party faults Jonathan for backing Jang NGF’s faction

[TGD]

 • Ex-senator wants forum disbanded

ALLEGING wrong-headedness, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has faulted President Goodluck Jonathan's recognition of Governor Jonah Jang of Plateau State as chairman of the Nigerian Governors' Forum (NGF).

Meanwhile, a former Deputy Speaker of the Bendel State House of Assembly, Senator Francis Okpozo, has called for the immediate proscription of the NGF as it is not recognised constitutionally.

The party said it is a travesty of democracy for the President given the fact that Jang lost to Governor  Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers State in what has been widely acknowledged as a free, fair and transparent NGF election.

In a statement issued in Osogbo Sunday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji 'Lai Mohammed, the ACN said the President's ill-advised decision has shown that he has little or no respect for democracy, and will stop at nothing to jettison time-tested ideals on the altar of political opportunism.

It said the recognition of the losing candidate for the chairmanship of the NGF has also shown that the President's spokesmen either do not know the thinking of their principal or have chosen to engage in downright lies in his defence.

''President Jonathan is frittering away whatever is left of his credibility by the day. His spokesman said in a statement the day after the NGF election that 'the President has always shown a willingness to work harmoniously with any leadership freely and independently chosen by the Governors Forum for the collective progress and development of all sections of the country and will continue to do so'.

''But it is now clear that the presidency's statement is not worth the paper on which it is written, that in the Nigerian presidency, words do not carry their exact meanings and that the spokesmen for the President speak for no one but themselves. When viewed in the context of similar deceitful statements by the presidency in the past, especially on the health of the First Lady, one can see a growing pattern of a lying presidency, a presidency that likes to hide behind one finger. This is sad, because without credibility, a President cannot govern successfully,'' ACN said.

The party said the President, who should be looked up to as the father of all, has become the father of a few renegades, and descended from being the President of Nigeria to the President of the PDP and now the President of a faction of the PDP.

''This President is daily cementing his unenviable reputation as the most divisive President in the history of Nigeria. By raising partisan politics to a pedestal higher than national interest, he has divided the country along religious, ethnic and political lines more than any of his predecessors.

''In the process he has destroyed or about to destroy national institutions and organisations. First, he succumbed to the pressure from his party to deal with the judiciary for daring to reverse the outcome of some of PDP's rigged polls. But for a courageous Chief Justice of Nigeria who cannot be teleguided now in the saddle, the judiciary would have been emasculated altogether.

''Then the President all but put an end to the fight against corruption, which is widely acknowledged as a canker worm that is fast destroying the fabric of our society, and now he has destroyed the NGF. This is not an enviable legacy for any President,'' it said.

Speaking in an  interview in Oleh, Delta State Sunday, Okpozo said that against the backdrop of infighting among the governors, the forum has turned out to be another clog in the wheel of the nation's budding democracy.

He said that as a result of high level politics, the association had been divided based on an ulterior motive which to his understanding is the fight for who becomes the President in 2015, adding that in a normal democracy, forum was unconstitutional and undemocratic.

Okpozo made a case for the review of the Statutory Revenue Allocation Formula, saying that if the formula was equitable, the governors would  not have any business claiming to be agent of the president.

He said: "The president likes some of them and do not like some too. The president divides governors and divides states too. That is not appropriate and so the forum should be totally banned. Let them work independently in their states because the governors carry a large crowd when they are going for the meeting. They stay outside their states waiting for largesse from the president. They travel from their states to other states, leaving them ungoverned."



The Guardian

[Folami David]

So many faulting occur in situations like this. Let them just pick themeselves up and blame who is to be blamed.