Niger State Governor & 10 Others Shun PDP Governors’ Meeting

The crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party Governors’ Forum may not be over soon as 11 out of the 23 governors of the party failed to attend its meeting in Abuja on Wednesday night.

The meeting, which was initially slated for 3pm, had to be shifted to 8pm when information got to its organisers that majority of the governors might not attend.

At 8pm, the National Chairman of the party, Dr. Bamanga Tukur, who was also at the Akwa Ibom State Governor’s Lodge in Asokoro District, Abuja, had to leave  due to poor attendance by the governors.

Tukur was said to have come with the intention of briefing the governors on the modalities he  had considered before naming members of the party’s National Reconciliation Committee.

The majority of the governors and other stakeholders were said to have rejected  the appointment of the Governor of Bayelsa  State, Mr. Seriake Dickson,  as the chairman of the committee.

Apart from coming from the same state as President Goodluck Jonathan, Dickson is seen as part of the problems rocking the Nigeria Governors’ Forum and the PDP.  Dickson openly supports the Governor of Plateau State, Mr. Jonah Jang, who was  defeated by Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State during the forum’s election on May 24. Amaechi  won 19 votes and Jang, 16  votes.

Shortly after the meeting ended, newsmen gathered from a top member of the PDP that the Bayelsa governor had indicated his readiness to reject  the appointment.

The governors that boycotted the meeting were those of Kano, Jigawa,  Adamawa, Niger, Sokoto, Taraba, Rivers, Cross River , Ebonyi, Bauchi and Kebbi.

The meeting was however attended by  Dickson and his counterparts in Delta, Benue, Kogi, Enugu, Akwa Ibom, Katisna and Abia states.  Governors of Kaduna, Kwara, Plateau and Gombe states  sent their deputies.