The ill-fated plot by some members of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) to surreptitiously replace Governor of Kwara State, Dr. Bukola Saraki as the Forum’s chair has shown the tremendous goodwill the presidential aspirant enjoys among his colleagues.
Such goodwill, coming at a time when political opponents have resolved to stop at nothing to dent good reputations built over past decades, was what Saraki needed to remain first among equals in the NGF.
The goodwill was there for him; it did not just manifest overnight to stall the collateral damage that the opposition elements within the NGF had planned to inflict on his presidential aspiration in order to portray him as unpopular among his colleagues.
Otherwise, the move instigated by the Goodluck Jonathan Presidency to shove him aside as NGF chair in a somewhat ignominious fashion, despite the fact that he had already served notice of his intention to ease out to enable him concentrate on the presidential contest, would have succeeded.
It is common knowledge that the Ogun State Governor, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, who was propped up and imposed on the Forum, rather undemocratically, as successor to Saraki, is the South-West coodinator of the Jonathan presidential campaign.
His ally, the governor of Benue State, Gabriel Suswam, who let the cat out of the bag after the plot was hatched at a midnight meeting in Abuja, and attended by only ten of the 26 Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governors, is North-Central coodinator of the campaign.
The Jonathan elements in the NGF sought to hastily wrest the platform of the Forum from Saraki, who is a very strong contender in the race for the PDP presidential ticket having become very uncomfortable with the political mileage the Kwara-born political leader has gained with his position as chair of the Forum.
The Jonathan elements in the Forum know for sure that Saraki is a very strong force in the presidential power politics. His leadership of the Forum stabilised the country during the turbulence occasioned by the hospitalisation saga of the former President, the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua in Saudi Arabia.
He deployed the platform of the Forum to ensure that constitutional provisions on presidential succession were adhered to when some desperadoes, who wanted to take over the presidency while Yar’Adua was in the hospital, created tension and heat in the polity over the issue.
Saraki built a working political synergy with the Yar’Adua presidency such that the late Yar’Adua reposed confidence in him. This was why, realizing the loyalty he was able to build for him among the PDP governors, using the NGF, Yar’Adua had given him and his colleagues the responsibility to scout for a compromise candidate for the position of National Chairman of the party.
Saraki and his colleagues had settled for Vincent Ogbulafor instead of Sam Egwu that former President Olusegun Obasanjo was trying to impose on the party and Anyim Pius Anyim that another group of party leaders opposed to Obasanjo’s seemingly bludgeoning hegemonic rule were propping up to stop Egwu.
The totality of this and other issues that were resolved in the governors’ favour have transformed the Forum into a very powerful and influential group in statecraft. This seeming monstrosity of the NGF, under Saraki, which stoutly opposed Jonathan’s take-over bid when the late Yar’Adua was still hospitalized, is what the Jonathan Presidency wants to tame or, is it destroy?
Analysts contend that the exercise of supplanting Saraki should have been done in a very decent manner. If the Jonathan elements in the NGF know, as they have always flaunted it, that they are in the majority, why did they effect a change of leadership rather undemocratically?
Why couldn’t they have allowed for a well-attended meeting where the right thing should have been done instead of the fraud that manifested as Gbenga Daniel chairmanship of the NGF? The answers, like a whiff of political desperation by elements who are trying to use their position of incumbency to seize a position that had been ceded to the North from 2007 to 2015, are blowing in the air.
But it is no longer news how well-meaning members of the Forum, especially governors of opposition parties, resisted imposition of a leadership on them by some external hands. When they met on Wednesday, November 3 in Abuja, they set aside the illegal process that produced Daniel and emplaced a fresh succession plan.
The modalities for the succession plan, which would see Saraki stay in office for the next three weeks or so, are being worked out by a five-member Committee headed by the Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fasola. After all, Saraki had told his colleagues long before now that he was going to resign.
At the end of the day, whoever emerges chairman of the NGF would have done so democratically and in an atmosphere of peace and camaraderie that would further strengthen the cohesion in the Forum rather than break it under the tension of some political goals and objectives.
But before that happens, in retrospect, it is indeed cheering that the NGF did not allow Saraki, who has given it a purposeful leadership since stepping in the saddle, to be humiliated out of office by elements who are deploying power for the purpose of self-preservation.
In fact, Saraki would have been humiliated if he did not enjoy the solid support of his colleagues; whereas, his colleagues are the one who control the delegates that will vote at the presidential primaries.
It therefore does make political sense, as some northern leaders in the PDP are searching for a consensus candidate, to resolve to back someone like Saraki who enjoys the support of his colleague-governors. He has led the NGF creditably and the action of his colleagues-rising up in his defence-speaks louder than voice.
Chukwuemeka resides in Abuja.
