On Monday 11th December, the Northern Governor’s Forum held its quarterly meeting in Abuja, for only the second time in almost 40 years it met outside Kaduna. The only other time it met outside Abuja was in the aftermath of the sectarian crisis in Jos, when it met in that City to show solidarity with the people of Jos. The Forum has met on a quarterly basis in a specially-designed building at the General Hassan Usman Katsina House, Kawo Kaduna since its inception more than 40 years ago. Kaduna State Government had provided support and a Secretariat for the Forum’s meetings, and all Governors had developed their Lodges and other elaborate infrastructure to make it convenient for Governors and their aides to attend the quarterly meetings.
The Northern Governors’ Forum emerged from the need for Governors of Northern States to discuss issues around the ownership and management of common assets, such as the New Nigerian Newspapers and the Northern Development Corporation (NNDC) and other common assets. They also used the forum to discuss and take common positions on other matters that affected the development of the North. Even during the era of the Military, and even against serious complaints from other parts of the country that the Forum was a political front for the interests of the north, the meetings continued. In reality, the Northern Governors’ Forum created the idea of a politically united North, and preservation of a northern identity and interests in the context of Nigeria. In spite of the creation of many States, the Forum of Northern Governors preserved the illusion that the north had interests to defend and protect against the rest of Nigeria, apart from discussing common assets and providing a political muscle in pursuit for some collective economic gains, such as the search for oil in the north.
Since the return to democratic governance, the Northern Governors’ Forum had also assumed a deeper tinge of political coloration, in spite of the fact that the Governors represented different political parties. This has reinforced the impression that the north can rise above partisan divisions, when Governors from different Parties can find common political grounds in defense of northern interests. For instance, the Governors had, on many occasions taken common positions at the wider, National Governors’ Forum which brought together all the nation’s Governors. In fact, only two days ago, the Northern Governors resolved to oppose the move by Members of the Federal House of Representatives to legislate into the Electoral Act, their own automatic membership of their Parties’ National Executive Committees. On other occasions, the Northern Governors’ Forum quarreled over what appeared to some of them as attempts to use the Forum to further the interests of the dominant Political Party in the North, which is the PDP, such as during the attempts to procure a PDP consensus candidate.
The reasons which compelled the northern Governors to move their meeting from Kaduna to Abuja, and henceforth to rotate it around Northern State Capitals were attributed to the reluctance of the Governor of Kaduna State, Mr. Patrick Ibrahim Yakowa to provide the traditional venue of the meeting, under pressure from President Goodluck Jonathan who does not want the Governors to meet. Another reason given for the movement of the meeting venue outside Kaduna was that the Governor’s security could not be guaranteed. Although the Government of Kaduna State has dismissed both reasons as false and lacking any credibility, the fact that the Governors have announced their intention henceforth to abandon Kaduna as their permanent meeting venue, although they intend to retain it as a permanent Secretariat, is a major development in terms of the politics of the North in the context of Nigeria. In historical terms, this is a symbolic end of an era, and it will be recorded as the final evidence that the north has no significant political capital. Others will say that the north has fallen victim of the bitter political campaigns to produce the next President by the PDP, in which Kaduna State plays a pivotal role.
Perhaps it is inevitable that a political forum such as the Northern Governor’s Forum will eventually fall victim of these political intrigues. People who are familiar with the history and complexity of the north have always recognized that the attempts to preserve the illusion of a politically-united, homogenous north has always been challenged by the reality that the north is also the most politically heterogeneous and developed part of Nigeria. The façade of unity around core economic and political values was bound to clash with bitter, partisan loyalties of politicians in the north and at the national level, as this development has shown. It is also a fact that the strategic value of the shared assets of Northern States never amounted to enough incentive for northern Governors to preserve the forum. Many cynics in fact have dismissed the periodic meetings of the Governors as social gatherings, arranged only to allow Governors come to Kaduna for a few days to relax.
Now that the bubble has burst, some people may feel a sense of loss and nostalgia that Kaduna has ceased to play the role of the political centre of the North which it was since the days of the late Sardauna. If there are any such people, they should not lose much sleep. The New Nigerian Newspapers and the NNDC do not need Northern States Governors to meet every three months in Kaduna to survive and expand. After all, it could be asked what value these establishments have derived from the meeting? The New Nigerian Newspapers are in a sorry state today; the NNDC is just a mere shell with a political cover. In fact, it could be argued that the Governors have gained more from the existence of these institutions in Kaduna, than the other way round. Even the effort to launch the Sardauna Fund has not gone beyond its launching, with many people asking about its impact and the grand promises made by the Governors.
If Northern Governors’ meetings are rotated around Northern State capitals, and not held permanently in Kaduna, the people of Kaduna State are not likely to miss much. Meeting of Governors who want us to believe that they are still loyal to the ideals and values and legacies of the late Sir Ahmadu Bello, Sardaunan Sokoto but who do not live their lives or govern in the manner he governed have very little value to the people of the north. Northerners need honest leaders that can engineer rapid economic progress, provide quality education for their children, serious investment in agriculture and health, as well as for them and assure them of peace and security. The entire north is a legacy of the Sardauna, and where Governors meet to discuss an almost extinct New Nigerian Newspapers or NNDC is of no practical significance. Northern Governors, like all other politicians are fighting, for their places during the forthcoming 2011 elections. The fact that they have abandoned their traditional meeting place in Kaduna is of no serious significance, since they have long abandoned the values and traditions of the former northern leaders.
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