The governors had planned to address a press conference to unveil its new Chairman, who is the Governor of Kebbi State, Atiku Bagudu.
Bagudu was elected as the chairman of the Progressive Governors Forum, which is made up of governors elected on the platform of the APC at the meeting of the governors held in Abuja on Thursday night at the Imo governor’s lodge.
Bagudu, whose election was unanimous, replaced the Governor of Imo State, Rochas Okorocha, whose tenure will expire on May 29.
Before the judgment was delivered, the APC governor had invited journalists to its Nelson Mandela, Asokoro, office where the new chairman of the forum would be unveiled.
Bagudu had driven to the venue of the briefing with the intention of welcoming his colleagues when the news of the highest court in the land broke.
He was said to have called his colleagues on phone that instead of coming to the Forum’s secretariat for the meeting, they should proceed to the Zamfara State Governor’s Lodge, also in Asokoro where they met the outgoing governor of the state, Abdulaziz Yari.
Yari, who recently relinquished the position of the Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum for the Governor of Ekiti State, Dr Kayode Fayemi, was also a victim of the judgment.
It was gathered that the governors consoled Yari and asked him to take the judgment as an act of God.
A source close to the secretariat of the APC, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said, “We were all shocked when the judgment came. That was why we had to divert all the governors to the Zamfara Governor’s Lodge where we met Yari.
“None of us thought the judgment could go that way. It was a shock to us. We have lost the entire state to the opposition and that is so painful.
“We lost the governorship position, three senators, about seven seats in the House of Representatives and all the members in the state House of Assembly.
“So, by the time we finished with Yari, it was almost time for the Jumat. That was why the event couldn’t hold.”
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