NGF crisis won’t threaten 2015 elections —Jang

JULY 2, 2013 

Factional Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, Governor Jonah Jang

The factional Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, Mr. Jonah Jang, has given an assurance that the crisis rocking the forum will not affect the 2015 general elections.

Jang, who is also the Governor of Plateau State, gave the assurance in a statement on behalf of his faction of the forum by its Director General, Mr. Osaro Onaiwu, in Abuja on Monday.

He said it was wrong for the First Secretary, Embassy of The Netherlands, Ms Anique Claessen,  to have raised the alarm that the crisis was capable of affecting the 2015 elections.

Claessen was reacting to the inability of the governors to accept the result of the election they conducted to pick their chairman, wondering whether the outcome of the election was not going to be a rehearsal of what to expect during the general elections in 2015.

Claessen had said at a seminar to evaluate INEC’s roadmap recently, “For example, the controversy surrounding the election of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum chairman seemed to me very ironical. If a small group of 36 cannot agree on and respect the outcome of a democratic election, what are the prospects for the election involving millions?”

During the NGF election, Governor Rotimi Amaechi got 19 votes, while Jang secured 15 votes.

However, Jang and his supporters rejected the result of the election and went ahead to open another secretariat.

Jang, nevertheless, said in the statement that there was no way the governors could isolate themselves from happenings in the country, but assured the people that they were capable of resolving their crisis.

The statement read, “We read with dismay the recent comments of the First Secretary, Embassy of the Netherlands, Ms Anique Claessen, which were widely circulated in the media, supposing that the recent internal family communication challenge of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum will affect the process and outcome of the 2015 elections.”

Jang, however, said, “From the above submission, it is very clear that the Dutch envoy has a limited understanding of the contending issues of the polity, the politics and the people.

“For it is hard to conceive how a matter that is not a constitutional issue would affect 2015 elections. INEC, the body charged with conducting elections in Nigeria, has not alluded in the remotest term to such a threat as Ms Claessen’s.”

He appealed to diplomatic missions to exercise restraint in their comments and avoid skewed postulations or prophecies about Nigeria’s national institutions, and that they should also know that their words carried the weight of their offices.