Senate President David Mark has waded into the simmering rift between the factional Chairman of Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) and Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The face-off stemmed from the controversy trailing the NGF election of May 24, 2013 which produced another Chairman, Jonah Jang of Plateau State, who is the anointed choice of the party. Amaechi was suspended last week over his alleged refusal to recall the chairman of Obia-Akpor Local Government Area.
Mark’s intervention is coming against the backdrop of the inability of the Senator Ike Ekweremadu Reconciliation Committee to successfully broker truce between the two warring parties.
Last month, the Senate PDP caucus mandated a special committee led by Ekweremadu to meet with the warring parties so as to get a political solution to the crisis raging between governors in the larger NGF on the one hand and some PDP governors on the other hand. Recall that the NGF is dominated by the PDP.
Armed with that mandate, the Ekweremadu committee headed for Port Harcourt, Rivers State, where they met with Amaechi and another governor from the South-South (names witheld). Daily Sun gathered that all the trouble-shooting efforts of the Ekweremadu Committee failed.
A source on the committee recounted how the senior lawmakers met with two of the principal actors in the crisis ravaging the NGF and impressed it on them to back-pedal and allow a “political solution to the matter.
“Rather than give room for at least, a political solution, a governor, who is the champion of a faction of the NGF, told the committee point-blank that rather than call for reconciliation, they are ready to take their chances and that the election for a new NGF chairman must take place.
“They told us point-blank that they have already assured the President that they have the needed majority. Besides, they contended that the emergence of the NGF chairman had never been by election and so, having secured more than the required number for a consensus candidate, they were not ready to entertain any reconciliation meeting with Amaechi.
”The Ekweremadu committee left Port Harcourt empty-handed, as it were. On getting back to Abuja, the committee expectedly briefed the Senate President about the Port Harcourt trip.
It was further resolved among the Senate PDP caucus that Mark should use his good offices and cordial relationship with Aso Rock and the party to broker truce and “allow the party machinery to resolve the matter amicably.”
The Senate President reportedly met with Aso Rock and the leadership of the PDP. Mark, however, was allegedly rebuffed by the party apparatus.
Undeterred, a source privy to the meeting, told Daily Sun that the Senate President “still believes that a political solution can still be reached and will not relent in making sure that the matter is resolved amicably.” It is unclear, however, whether the reconciliation efforts are still on.
[SunNews]