The Nigeria’s Governor’s Forum Chairmanship election has come and gone. The election has been won and lost, but the reverberations remain in the Nigerian polity. The election is an eye opener to some of the things that happen in Nigeria’s high places, the corridors of power and political holy of holies. Thirty five Nigerian governors (one was absent) voted to elect first among equals. One or some among them must have suspected or anticipated a foul play hence cleverly arranged to have the proceedings recorded on tape (unknown to others) for the whole world to see and for posterity. The election to all intents and purposes from all accounts variously reported was free, fair and transparent. Governor Amaechi of Rivers State won by 19 votes defeating his opponent, Plateau State counterpart, Governor Jang who polled 16 votes. One would have expected the loser to be humble in defeat, have a hand shake and embrace the winner, but it was not to be!
The defeated governor was not alone. He was buoyed up by the rantings of his vocal colleagues in the losers’ club who denounced the election as being rigged without proof to support their claim. All they exhibited were signs and symptoms pathognomonic of “Nigerian Election Losers Syndrome”(NELS)!
Governor Akpabio of Akwa Ibom (“The Presidential Adviser on Nigeria’s Governors’ Forum”) claimed a consensus position had earlier been reached by the PDP’s Governors Forum (a forum inferior to the Nigeria’s Governors’ Forum) prior to the election giving the chair to Governor Jang through the back door. This confounds the elementary principle of “The part cannot be greater than the whole.”! Any consensus position not arrived at by the entire House of the Nigeria’s Governors’ Forum is null and void, hence of no effect. Inability to have a consensus chairman at full house forum was the reason for the ballot option (Open secret) they eventually agreed to.
Another governor in the Forum, my good friend and a professional colleague, the Ondo State helmsman, claimed or was reported to have denounced the election on the ground that Governor Amaechi failed or refused to resign his position as Chairman of the Forum before presenting himself for re-election. This is at best an attempt to “spin”. Unfortunately, the Dr Mimiko that I know is a well trained medical doctor of the famous Ife tradition and not a “spin doctor”! I am not aware that the NGF’s Constitution has a mandatory clause for the incumbent chairman to resign before standing for re-election which is in line with global best practices. ( However, I know Governor Amaechi could not have refused to resign his position as Chairman prior to re-election if that was the decision of his colleagues.) The election as revealed on video was conducted by the Director General of the Nigeria’s Governors’ Forum with Governor Uduaghan as the returning officer.
Political observers had all along suspected while some strongly believed that the loser-governors were only acting the script from the Villa. In a manner suggestive of removing the veil from the masquerade and dispersing all shadow of doubt, President Jonathan speedily recognized and identified with the Jonah Jang’s losers’ faction. O pity! What an unstatesmanly presidential confirmation of a written script from Aso Rocks irrespective of proclamation to the contrary.
In all this, the Governors’ Forum has only succeeded in undermining itself. It has cut its nose to spite its face.The governors ridiculed themselves and called to question the sanctity of their exalted office. The Forum as it stands now remain polarized between the “President’s ?Men”(“boys”) and the “Independent Governors”. The Yoruba have a saying that it is the attitude of one slave that discredits two hundred slaves. It may not be fair to condemn ALL the governors in one fell swoop, rather, we should separate the “Jews” from the “Gentiles” among them. The two no longer belong to the same “body of Governors” having been separated by the succession politics of 2015! Umnnnnnh! I am persuaded by my religious belief to remind ALL that “except The Lord builds the house, the labourers labour in vain.”
The blame however lies squarely at the doorstep of the loser-Governors who in a bid to remain in Mr President’s good books chose to denounce the outcome of a credible election they had freely subjected themselves to after losing out. It is patently ungubernatorial! They have portrayed themselves as babies. Babies cry and tend to throw temper tantrums when they do not get what they want. Sometimes babies get pacified through pacifier or feeder stuck in their mouth. Whichever way, the desire to satisfy the human alimentary instinct may be the ultimate pacifier. In this circumstance, the presidency may just be the source of this ultimate pacifier. This appears to be the appropriate metaphor for the Governors Forum election and its outcome.
Let it be said loud and clear that the post Governors’ Forum election wrangling by the governors is a sad commentary on the democratic integrity and leadership credentials of those concerned who are ordinarily seen as “leaders of our democracy” by virtue of their privileged position. Leaders, nay Governors who are unable to demonstrate fundamental leadership qualities and basic democratic principles at their forum, are definitely incapable of bequeathing same on the larger society. You cannot give what you don’t have.
All may not be lost yet provided the governors come together to reason together and allow good sense to prevail in the interest of their common good and by extension the good of the respective states they preside over. Unless this is done, it may not be out of place to capture the Nigeria’s Governors Forum debacle in one of renown literary icons’ Chinua Achebe’s titles “Things fall Apart” while we, the bystanders, chorus the Forum’s “Nunc dimitis” at least for the remaining part of the present political dispensation.
God save Nigeria!
Olorunnimbe Mamora,
June 4, 2013.
