South South Govs Withdraw Support For Amaechi's NGF Re-Election

Governors of South South states are set to dump Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State at this week’s election of a new chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF).

Amaechi is the current chairman of the forum but the Presidency does not want him back on the seat on account of political differences.

The Presidency, according to sources, is intensifying its mobilisation of support for its anointed candidate, Governor Ibrahim Shema of Katsina State.

Only Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State is said not to be sharing the position of his counterparts on the Amaechi issue.

It was reliably gathered that the Chairman, Board of Trustees of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Anthony Anenih, and the Chief of Staff to President Goodluck Jonathan, Chief Mike Oghiadome, have in the last few weeks, put pressure on PDP governors, particularly in the South East and the South-South to support Shema at the election slated for May 23.

A source privy to the plan revealed: “Anenih has visited Cross River about three times recently and may have succeeded in convincing Governor Liyel Imoke, who is the Chairman of the South-South Governors Forum, to dump Amaechi.

“Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta State has also been cajoled to back Shema, but the Presidency’s foot soldiers have not bothered to lobby Oshiomhole because his position to vote for Amaechi has not changed. For Governors Godswill Akpabio and Seriake Dickson of Akwa Ibom and Bayelsa States, representing, their loyalty to the president is unquestionable.”

In the South East only Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo is backing Amaechi.

The Presidency, whose points man in the zone is Governor Peter Obi of Anambra State, has been assured of the support of Theodore Orji (Abia); Sullivan Chime (Enugu) and Martins Elechi (Ebonyi).

The South East and South South governors, at a recent meeting in Asaba, Delta State, asked their colleagues and Nigerians to give maximum support to the Jonathan government in the implementation of its transformation agenda.

Oshiomhole was absent at the parley.

A source disclosed that Okorocha, who had been tipped off on the agenda of the meeting, deliberately came late and only took part in the photo session with his colleagues.

Before the meeting ended, it was learnt that Anenih addressed the governors and impressed it on them on the “implications of allowing the president to be humiliated if Amaechi is re-elected as NGF chair.”

In his reaction to the claim that South-South governors have decided not to support Amaechi, the Chief Press Secretary to the Rivers State governor, David Iyiofor, in a terse SMS simply, said, “I’m not aware.”