Although there had been widespread rumours
that some of the President’s recent utterances and activities do not catch the
fancy of some governors, a confirmation of such views only came with the
expression of deep ill-feeling against the President by the governors.
The governors vented their feeling via two
platforms. While the 19 northern governors took on the President last Thursday
in Kaduna, their Southern counterparts launched their own attack the next day.
Accepted, that the governors from the two
political blocs had different allegations against the President, their
conclusion is the same: that Obasanjo is initiating negative actions against
them.
The Northern governors accused the
President of working against the interest of the north. Jigawa State governor,
Alhaji Saminu Turaki, who is the chairman of the Northern Governors’ Forum,
speaking on behalf of his colleagues alleged that President Obasanjo schemed
very hard to scuttle a meeting tagged ‘Northern Governors Peace Conference’
organised by the governors.
According to Turaki, President Obasanjo
deliberately mandated his vice, Atiku Abubakar to represent him at a ceremony of
the National Action Committee on AIDS the same day the conference was billed to
hold. Atiku was to be a special guest at the meeting.
Turaki submitted that the Northern
governors would not have been much incensed by the President’s action if the
President had not shown up at the same AIDS event. Apart from Atiku, he further
accused Obasanjo of warding off prominent northern indigenes in the Presidency
from attending the Kaduna meeting.
President Obasanjo has since refuted the
litany of allegations against him by Turaki. In fact, he, through his publicity
aide, Mr. Justice Abuah, dismissed the Jigawa State governor’s claims as
"misguided and unfortunate political sophistry".
However, while the Presidency’s refuttal
may have come quite handy, the missile from the 17 Southern governors has left
President Obasanjo and his aides with many more charges to respond to.
The Southern governors in Benin, Edo
State, accused the President of orchestrating the allegation of financial
profligacy against them as a ploy to whittle down public confidence in them and
demonise them before Nigerians.
Short of dressing him down with
invectives, the governors said the President had become a pain in the neck and
needs to be called to order.
President Obasanjo is yet to react to the
unpalatable remarks of the southern governors. But whether he does that or not,
the truth is that the two sides are not enjoying the best of relationships.
For good reason, analysts are worried by
the situation. The matter is not helped by the fact that the public is not
availed all the details responsible for the confrontations.
For instance, in the case of the Kaduna
Northern Governors’ Conference, while the governors have been economical with
reasons why they are annoyed with the Presidency for not allowing Vice President
Abubakar to chair the occasion, analysts believe that the whole thing is rooted
in politics.
Although the meeting was tagged Peace
Conference, Daily Champion gathered that it was anchored on the
presidential ambition of the North in 2007. It is based on this that the
President was said to have advised against dividing the country along the line
of ethnicity when the invitation for the conference was given to him.
He was quoted as saying ‘While it is understandable that the states within one
of the six geo-political zones may wish to meet and address problems of the zone
in common, our history must guide us to avoid the risk of polarising the nation
between the North and the South again.
"A forum of Northern Governors is
sure to give rise to a corresponding forum of Southern Governors with all the
potential of re-awakening of regional rivalries and loyalties to the detriment
of national cohesion."
True to the President’s fears, Southern
governors immediately summoned an urgent meeting at Benin, soon after their
Northern counterparts had theirs. However, many are not even perturbed by that .
Observers are only disturbed by the issues fingered as central to the position
of the governors.
While the Southern governors took on the
President for accusing them of mismanaging public finances at their disposal,
they did not come out straight to fault the veracity of the allegation.
It is not the first time such allegation
would be made against the governors. Early in the year, Minister of State for
Finance, Mrs Nenadi Usman accused the governors of stashing away funds in the
states’ kitty and creating foreign exchange problems. Governors of some states
upbraided the minister over the utterance.
Nigerians themselves, apart from the
President’s indictment and the minister’s expose, have been alleging high
level corruption among the governors and other notable government officials.
Be that as it may, even with that,
political pundits are strongly of the view that it is not enough for the
President to publicly use derogatory adjectives to describe his governors.
For example, they cite the recent
pronouncement of the President that he would not have anything to do with
governors who spent state money on ‘papa’s birthday and mama’s burial, as
not befiting of his office.
Along with that they also fault President
Obasanjo’s comment on Plateau State governor, Chief Joshua Dariye, Anambra
State governor, Dr. Chris Ngige and a number of other state governors.
The argument is that the President, apart
from having several institutions provided by the constitution to investigate and
call the governors to order, should have summoned them privately and scolded
them instead of publicly taking them to the cleaners.
The description of the governors as "Owambe
governors" by the President at the beginning of this democracy was also
matched with a diatribe. The same was the case when the South South governors
were publicly berated and accused of squandering the 13 per cent derivation fund
given to them by the federal government.
Southern governors were quick last week to
accuse the President of presenting a picture of a sanctimonious person, when the
Presidency may not be much better than to other tiers.
The public is not availed of the level of
financial indiscretion within the Presidency, but the conduct of some ministers,
the frequent lobbying of the National Assembly members to remove their
leaderships during the first dispensation and a number of not too-open deals by
officials of the federal government, combine to make people to raise eyebrows
over the seriousness of the administrations’s campaign against corruption.
Definitely, as analysts argue, the
President stands a little chance of achieving his targeted goal both in fighting
corruption and delivering on his campaign promises if he treads divergent paths
with the governors.
For this reason, many argue that it is
better to adopt a decent and respectful way of projecting the governors’ sins
to them, without exposing them as criminals before the public. Whether the
President will be ready to take such counsel is another thing.
But without taking such route, the governors would
continue to accuse the President of merely blackmailing and demonising them.
