Bauchi State governor, Isa Yuguda has accused his Niger State counterpart, Dr Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu of being responsible for the current crisis tearing the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) apart due to his failure to stick to the agreement reached by the Northern governors to present Plateau State governor Jonah Jang as the consensus candidate of the NGF.
Yuguda who made this statement in a chat with journalists at the State House after meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan, challenged Aliyu to publicly deny that there was no agreement by the 19 Northern governors to present Jang as their consensus candidate.
He affirmed that the 19 governors agreed on the consensus candidacy of Jang, since it was the turn of the North to produce the NGF chairman, but Governor Aliyu, who was supposed to present Jang to the larger NGF, failed to do so, even when he had previously presented the Plateau governor to the Peoples’ Democratic Party Governors’ Forum (PDPGF).
“That is why I said all the crises and all the unfortunate comments made about the governors today, the fault should be traced to the NSGF, because we are the culprits.
“And that is why I say on his honour, let the chairman of the NSGF come out and tell Nigerians that either of the two; we the 19 northern governors did not come out with Jang as the consensus candidate or we decided and picked Jang as our consensus candidate.
“So, if that has been done, all these things that we see wouldn’t have happened. That is why I say as far as I am concerned, if I will sit with my colleagues and we take a decision and you go and do a different thing, I am not part of those kind of things and me as a person will not attend the meeting (NSGF) but my deputy governor can attend on behalf of the people and government of Bauchi State. But as a person, I will not. That has always been my position.”
Yuguda noted that if he thought his integrity and the integrity of the people he represented was threatened, he would not be part of such a system, saying “that is why I left ANPP (All Nigeria People’s Party) and went back to PDP, the family that I rightfully belong.”
The Bauchi governor reiterated that there had never been an election to choose the chairman of NGF, as he had always emerged through consensus, recalling that he was the one who seconded the motion to make Governor Rotimi Amaechi the NGF chairman during a meeting attended by 13 state governors in Ilorin, Kwara State.
Yuguda is one of the 14 governors conspicuously absent at the meeting of the Northern State Governors’ Forum (NSGF) which started yesterday in Kaduna.
Together with Ibrahim Shema of Katsina and Ibrahim Geidam, they neither attended nor sent any representatives.
The governors of Adamawa and Taraba States sent in their apologies.
Apart from Aliyu, the host and Kaduna State governor, Mukhtar Ramalan Yero; Governor Ibrahim Hassan Dankwanbo, Gombe; Sule Lamido, Jigawa and Umaru Al-Makura of Nasarawa State attended the meeting.
Other states were represented at the meeting by their deputy governors, while Governor Gabriel Suswam of Benue State and his Plateau State counterpart, Jonah Jang, were represented by their Secretaries to the State Governments.
Governor Aliyu, while fielding questions from newsmen, said there was nothing wrong with the large number of deputy governors at the meeting, because decision taken with them would be binding on their principals.
On the pulling out of Yuguda from the NSGF, he said “he did not write to this meeting and it is a voluntary organisation and we have resolved as a group to follow this informally, you did not hear any one of us reply him back the way you heard him.”
Asked to comment on the controversial election of the NGF, he said it was long story, which time could not permit him to tell.
“If I’m to tell you what led to the problem in the NGF, we will stay here till tomorrow, so I have no intention of doing that. I will only tell you that in whatever process of election or whatever, there may be one person or the other that will be aggrieved. If you want my view, I will tell you we had an election, we have a problem, we will solve it.”