Governor Henry Seriake Dicks of Bayelsa speaks.. What is your reaction to the crisis currently rocking the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF)? Quite frankly, there is no governor who would say he is not touched or he is not sad by the development in the NGF. We are as outraged and saddened as any other Nigerian. It could have been handled better. I think that governors are responsible people not irresponsible as the outcome may have suggested. We are putting our heads together, consulting across divides and very soon, with the feelers that I have, the misunderstanding will be resolved and NGF will be back. But the NGF that will be back, I’m sure it’s an NGF that would have learnt its lessons; an NGF that would have learnt to stick to the founding principles of that organisation, which is a peer review mechanism, not a trade union, not a platform for personal political aggrandisement, not a platform for playing partisan politics. These are the guiding principles of the NGF. We are there actually to compare notes and also to be a platform for collaboration. It is not a political organisation; it is not a partisan organisation. It is a bipartisan or multi-partisan organisation that enables us to focus on what is the best how we can deepen democracy and collaborate with the Federal Government on challenges of development, challenges of national security and so on. Well the problem didn’t start now. PDP governors, who became chairman of the Forum over the years turned it to be a campaign platform – a platform for occupying national political space, a platform, when necessary, for promoting personal ambition, a platform also for promoting the ambitions of others. It didn’t start now, it didn’t start with Governor Amaechi, even before him, that was the tradition.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Jun 2013 09:28:44 +0000
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