He said the activity of the Governors Forum, which he described as an “oppressive and dictatorial forum”, is “getting more worrisome by the day. “The quality of governance in most of the PDP controlled states is very poor,” Clark said. The former Minister of Information said “the PDP is sitting on a keg of gun powder, which can explode at any time”. Specifically, he accused Obasanjo of destroying the party’s supremacy because he wanted control by wresting the powers of the party’s leader from the National Chairman. He also lambasted the governors for bastardising the slogan of the party from “power to the people” to “power to the governors”. Besides, Clark denied insinuations that Jonathan signed any pact with the former president that he would have only one term in office. “It is not true. It is not the former president who decides how many terms a president should do. It is the constitution,” Clark said. Clark’s Abuja news conference was tagged “open letter to the governors forum”. Recalling his political experience from the First Republic, the elder statesman said he had no regret attacking the governors because the matter affects the peace and stability of Nigeria. According to him, “the governors forum is now acting as an opposition party to the Federal Government”. “It deliberately breaches with impunity, the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Constitution of the PDP, without any challenges. The Forum has now become a threat to the peace and stability of Nigeria. Most of the governors today are more dictatorial than the then military governors,” the chief said. Comparing the NGF with the United States’ National Governors Association (NGA), the octogenarian said Nigerian governors abuse the constitution with impunity and are using the platform to manipulate the polity. “I have seen and made enquiries about your counterparts in the United States of America, USA. A governors’ association called the National Governors Association, NGA, does exist, but their existence and operations are practised and operated within the confines of the law of the land. This body, which was formed as far back as 1908 has never been a thorn in the flesh of the country. They are not politically ambitious. Each of the governors of the 50 states in the USA, who want to become the President of the country, does not use the forum to achieve this ambition,” Clark said. Going down memory lane, the nationalist said the overbearing influence of the NGF started when former Kwara Governor Bukola Saraki became its chairman. Clark accused the forum of double standards in the way it reacts to national issues. Questioning the sincerity of the governors, the elerstatesman said “Whereas the governors forum is said to have a peer review mechanism, the Forum is not known to have ever prevailed upon any of its erring members to do what is right. The governors made no comments about Chief James Onanefe Ibori, former Governor of Delta State, all through his trial and conviction, based on corruption both in Nigeria and in London. Neither did they condemn their colleague, who was accused of beating up a fellow Nigerian worker in this civilised world. But conspicuously support their colleagues for no good reasons.” “The recent action of the National Working Committee, NWC, of the PDP in which 10 of the members met to take a decision even when the National Chairman was available and did not authorise his deputy to act for him, clearly showed that there was problem in the party. Instead of the Forum to join other party leaders to resolve this problem, it arrogantly supported one side of the dispute. “The controversy in Adamawa State is being fuelled by the governors forum by declaring its unholy support for the Governor of the state, Murtala Nyako. The Forum did not see anything wrong with Governor Nyako’s ambition of nominating his wife as the Chief Judge of the state.” Clark blamed the controversy in Adamawa on the selfish interest of the PDP National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur; Nyako and former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, who all want their sons to be the governor. “Clark recalled that the conflict between the National Chairman and the President over who the party leader is started in the days of Obasanjo. According to him, the former president “punctured and destroyed” the party’s supremacy. “..somewhere along the line, the incoming President Chief Olusegun Obasanjo used his military antecedents, indoctrination and perceptual conceptualisation to obliterate the known practice of the distinction of the party chairmanship with the leadership, and office of the President. “He prevented the late Chief Sunday Awoniyi from becoming the Chairman of the great party on the reason that Chief Awoniyi was a Yoruba man like himself. He preferred Barnabas Gemade, who actually became the National Chairman of the party. Much sooner and for no justifiable reason, he decided to replace Gemade with young Audu Ogbeh, who used to be a Miniter in the Alhaji Shehu Shagari government.” Clark recalled that Obasanjo removed Ogbeh and imposed Senator Ahmadu Ali over the disagreement on the kidnap of former Anambra Governor Chris Ngige and the politics of the state’s godfather, Mr. Chris Uba. “We witnessed the bastardisation of the party by former President, Olusegun Obasanjo and former National Chairman of the Party, Sen. Ahmadu Ali, who for their own interest frustrated all the founding fathers of the party and party faithful by de-registering most of the founding members of the party. Chief Obasanjo installed himself the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, BOT, of the party as a former President of the country. With all these actions, the party’s supremacy was punctured and destroyed. Members and all concerned reluctantly accommodated this unilateral attitude of the president in office at that time, while he got himself consolidated for the period he served. “Concurrently, the governors in the various states also assumed the same posture and in all circumstances seized the soul, the heart and disciplinary features of the party. “There is no more justice in the party due to the greed and corrupt attitude of the heavy weights of the party who made money, using the party. Today, they are using the same money to destroy the party.” “There is no unity in the party, it is fragmented everywhere.” He went on: “The Party’s progress in the country is accidental based on past glory and also due to the presence of petty, tribal and ineffective opposition Parties. “The slogan of the party has been turned upside down. The PDP members at the grass root no longer control the party and the power of the party no longer belong to the people. The people have lost the power, reluctantly accepting the slogan ‘Power to the governors’.” He added: “The PDP governors who now regard themselves as the leaders of the Party, are using their own structures to entrench corruption, lack of internal democracy, imposition of candidates within the structures of the party over the recognised structures as entrenched in the party’s Constitution. “The over-bearing influence of the governors forum in the polity has become a matter of serious concern. The activities of the PDP governors forum in particular have become very disturbing and calls for urgent correction as it is fast eroding the authority and the supremacy of the party and posing a serious threat to our democracy. The forum has become a powerful tool in the hands of the governors who now use it to pursue and promote their individual and collective interests with little or no regard to the letter and spirit of the party’s Constitution and supremacy. The octogenarian accused the governors of thwarting efforts to raise funds for the PDP because they want the party to continually depend on them for finances. He said most governors have hijacked their local government councils and have deliberately failed to conduct elections so as to impose their stooges in contravention of the 1999 Constitution and the Amended Electoral Act 2011. He added that they have seized the control of Houses of Assembly by appointing Principal Officers who have no financial independence. He wonderedwhy state lawmakers are afraid to adopt the Constitution amendment that grant them financial autonomy. The over-bearing attitude of the governors, he said, might be the reason people are opposed to State Police, which ideally should exist in a Federation. “Quite simply, the people no longer trust the governors. Our democracy is today imperiled because of the excesses of the governors who have put themselves and their interest over and above the interest of the nation.” The Director General of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) Mr. Asisana Okauru did not respond to text messages last night. He also did not pick calls to his mobile phone.
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