Nigerian Governors Divided, What Kind Of Leaders Do We Have?

The headline in most newspapers today is the crisis in the Nigerian Governors’ Forum, the emergence of two chairmen after an election that took place on Friday. The returning officer of the election declared Gov. Ameachi of Rivers State as duly elected in a free and fair election. However, a group led by the governor of Akwa Ibom State alleges rigging and opposed the result and subsequently declared their candidate, Gov Jang of Plateau State as their chairman as they declared not to recognize Gov. Ameachi as their chairman.

The said election was conducted among 35 participants only. All were accredited and they all voted secretly. The votes were counted publicly in the presence of all concerned. And now some are claiming that the election was rigged. I find this appalling and laughable. This takes my mind to the elections in the general public; I mean local, state and federal elections.

These are the same people who came to the public that elections in which millions of people were involved were free and fair and now could not accept an election in which only 35 people were involved. Isn’t this an indictment on them? How is it possible that an election of such small magnitude can be rigged when all of them were looking as the process was going on? And come to think of it that those who are vehemently opposed to the process and result are PDP governors. Are these not members of the same party that 

 Nigerians claim were involved in massive rigging?

Now that there is a parallel executive, where is the rule of law? Is there no constitution or law guiding the process of elections in the NGF? When there is a dispute after elections, are there no set down procedure of seeking redress? Should a declared loser pick up the mantle of leadership because his supporters say so?

Let us take this to the general elections. Will it be proper when, after an election, a PDP candidate is declared as the winner and an opposition candidate comes up and declare himself as the winner? Is it not the same thing that led to crisis in other nation and led to the loss of lives in their hundreds of thousand?

What is the breakaway faction of the NGF planning to achieve? What lessons are they trying to teach us as Nigerians? In our small organizations, if we do same thing and it led to anarchy, do they have the moral standing to intervene or mediate?

If the governors ignore the rule of law and take the law upon them, what hope is for the common man? The implication of this action is the aggrieved governors are telling us that they do not trust out court nor are they ready to uphold our laws. NGF is a registered association under CAMA and should be subject to the same laws other bodies under this act are.

My conclusion is that these governors are breaking the law and showing bad example and precedent. They are not worthy to be leaders because they are showing bad examples. I do not want to talk about the hand of Esau and the voice of Jacob in this matter. This clear in the way things went even before the election process took place. Even though the presidency came out with a statement dissociating them from the incident, I do not trust that they have no role in this complicity.

Nigerians are watching and this is an indication that we cannot trust these people to lead us to the Promised Land. I sure believe that you know what to do. Elections will soon be here, we should get prepared to vote them out. Victory is our!

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