I am still trying to locate the clause which establishes the Nigeria Governors' Forum in the constitution.
I concede that under the constitution, every person is accorded the right to freely associate with other persons as long as such an association is not intended for a criminal or illegitimate purpose as that would take it away from the path of freedom of association into the unlawful highway of criminal conspiracy.
In other words, while it is perfectly legitimate for all Nigerians, governors and commoners alike, to exercise their constitutional rights to associate with each other, it is also forbidden for such association to be deployed into anti-social or negative purposes. That is why it is never a defence for criminal gangs like robbers, kidnappers and other purveyors of violence, secular or sectarian, to plead "freedom of association" whenever the law catches up with them. It is in that context that I want to look at the now dreaded Nigeria Governors' Forum, a trade union of sorts, eagerly serving the interest of governors at the expense of accountability and political prudence.
There are three tiers of government known to the Nigerian Constitution, namely, the federal, states and local governments. Because there is only one president, it is mathematically impossible to have a union of presidents unlike the case of the multitude that constitute the lower layers of government: there are 36 governors and more than 700 local governments in the country. In Aristotelian logic, being social animals, they are imbued with the instinct to congregate and that is the case.
"Birds of the same feather flock together" and in the specific context of politics, where who gets what, when and how, constitute the principal raison d'etre for every step, it follows that the pulling of numerical resources together would facilitate the best interests of each of the group jostling for advantages. These could be seen in the collective stance of the governors when demanding their fair share of the 'National Cake' through the revenue allocation formula.
As desirable as this pulling of governorship powers vis-à-vis the other tiers of government may be, it has to be conceded too that since politics is a domino game, whatever additional advantage that is gained by any tier of government is a direct subtraction from those of other tiers. In other words, as the governors' forum became more and more powerful, it necessarily implies that the other tiers, and in particular, the presidency,was losing powers.
We have already seen how the governors can decisively influence electoral outcomes at the centre through their wholesale grip on state delegates at party primaries. Governor Amaechi as the leader of the Governors Forum has demonstrated his dexterity in deploying the muscles amassed from the 35 other governors to secure huge political gains and it would seem that the other governors were quite happy with how he has deftly applied their unionist-type power to extract unusual concessions from the president on several occasions in ways that would have made the Adams Oshiomhole of the NLC days jealous. It is this awareness that has elevated the forum into a kind of political superstructure operating over and above what the Nigerian Constitution provides.
Sensing that a governor who holds such a circumstantially powerful position of NGF leader could, at will, upset the political calculus of 2015, the President and his henchmen reasoned that the time has come to clip the expanding wings of Governor Ameachi through several shenanigans such the literary clipping of his aeronautic wings by grounding his executive jet. The calculation was and, still is; by grounding him, he would not have the ease of crisscrossing the nation's airspace spreading his new gospel of power shift which is nothing but apostasy to some.
Next, he was attacked from several fronts including the direct accusation by ex-militant Asari Dokubo that he is an ingrate who bites the finger that fed him (I have always thought that Ameachi has the Supreme Court and God alone to thank for his good fortune as governor). There was an orchestrated march in Port Harcourt by "protesters" who questioned the integrity of the governor. The last attack was the well-calibrated effort to scuttle his attempt to secure a second term as the leader of the NGF.
First, they sought to break the governorship forum by forming a parallel body known as the PDP governors' forum with Gov. Godswill Akpabio as the leader but the other governors, already aware of how much they could extract from the system through a united front, predictably rallied around Amaechi. The final show of shame was executed when, after the re-election of Ameachi by a majority of 19 to 16 last week, some governors undemocratically broke rank and rallied round Gov. Jonah Jang, the loser, as their 'leader.' Needless to say that it was a display of political irresponsibility and lack of personal integrity by individuals purportedly wielding political power by virtue of elections. If every loser in an election is given the liberty to refute the results, what meaning are we attaching to democracy?
The bottom line is that the ensuing brouhaha is geared towards frustrating the actual and perceived potential of an alliance that could influence the 2015 elections. The immediate outcome is the dispersal of the forum from where a potential opposition could emerge. The reality, however, is that our constitution does not contemplate a situation in which a lower tier of government can effectively upstage a higher one: The sum total of the powers of all the governors of the federation cannot withstand the powers vested in a president who knows his onions just the same way we cannot expect the powers of all the local government chairmen in a state to withstand the powers of the state governor. That is the nature of the hierarchy the constitution has created in order to ensure discipline in our multiparty polity while reserving ultimate sovereignty to the people.
What is expected are the cooperative deployment of powers within the tiers of government with a view to a governing synergy and not the mischievous deployment of same for mutual antagonism as it has come to be. It is safe to say that while all this primitive politicking is taking place, the security and welfare of the people, the only reason why we have governments, are unduly put on hold.
