Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed of Kwara State has called on the two opposing groups in the Nigerian Governors’ Forum to reconcile their differences following Friday’s disputed chairmanship election.
In a statement issued in Ilorin on Sunday, Ahmed said reconciliation had become necessary for the NGF not to lose sight of its objective of peer review for development.
The NGF broke into two factions on Friday after the forum’s secretariat declared Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State reelected as chairman of the group by 19 votes to Governor Jonah Jang’s 16.
Jang is the Plateau State governor.
But a faction led by Jang and Governor Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State disputed the result, arguing that Amaechi should have stepped down before the election took place.
The statement, signed by Ahmed’s Chief Press Secretary, Abdulwahab Oba, said the governor made the call while speaking with journalists on his return to Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, from Abuja, where the NGF election took place.
Ahmed called on his colleagues to shun divisive political tendencies and bury the hatchet, adding that the forum should be a platform for development for the benefit of the people.
He said: “If there are issues as regards the election of the forum’s chairman, we should use the same platform to resolve them rather than fanning the embers of discord in the media.
“Our choking security challenges should not be compounded with political conundrum.”
Rather, Ahmed said that the governors should complement the leadership at the federal level.
Ahmed described the NGF as a peer review platform for good governance and should therefore offer critical development advice to first term governors such as himself.
This, he said, was necessary so that democracy could be made more meaningful for the people, adding that efforts should be made not to overheat the system.
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