Daily Trust

Governors of the Northern states voted in favour of retaining the power rotation policy because it is entrenched in the ruling party’s constitution even though the president has the right to present himself as candidate, Governor Murtala Nyako has said.

Ten states voted against seven with one abstention for the upholding of the zoning arrangement between the North and the South at the Northern Governors’ Forum meeting in Kaduna on Tuesday, and the forum also said President Goodluck Jonathan was free to stand for elections next year.
Explaining the rather contradictory position taken by the forum, the Adamawa State governor said the constitution of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) recognised the zoning policy and therefore the ball is now in the president’s court to do what he thought right.

“First, there is the constitution of the federation; it has to be abided by. Then, we PDP members, we know the party also has its own constitution and agreements within the party, we must abide by those as well,” Nyako told the BBC Hausa radio in an interview broadcast yesterday.
“The bottom line is that the federal constitution gives him (the president) the right to stand. Is it morally right for him to stand? That is a different matter altogether. But the right to stand, that one is guaranteed by the constitution. Therefore it is now up to him to go and ponder, is it morally right for him to stand or not?

“Second, we said there is the constitution of the PDP which, based on an agreement reached, said power should rotate between the North and the South. The South took its turn for eight years, now it is time for the North to take its turn for eight years.

“But midway, President Umaru Musa Yar’adua died without completing his tenure. So now we have a problem, what do we do at this time? We now said, consultations have not been concluded on this issue. It’s not we governors alone who should take a decision on what to do. It is proper for consultations to be concluded first before we could be sure of what is the right thing to do.”

Asked if the decision of the Northern governors did not amount to an endorsement through the backdoor for Jonathan, Nyako insisted: “We said will continue discussions with people.”

Nyako, in a surprise move on Tuesday, voted in support of zoning at the Northern governors’ meeting, which was specially convened to collate results of consultations with stakeholders in the states. He had last week taken sides with the opponents of power rotation, a decision that was itself a u-turn from comments he made in May in support of zoning.

The other nine governors who supported zoning are Bukola Saraki (Kwara), Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu (Niger), Saidu Dakingari (Kebbi), Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto), Mahmuda Shinkafi (Zamfara), Ibrahim Shema (Katsina), Ibrahim Shekarau (Kano), Sule Lamido (Jigawa) and Danjuma Goje (Gombe).

Governors opposed to zoning are Ali Sheriff (Borno), Danbaba Suntai (Taraba), Aliyu Akwe Doma (Nasarawa), Gabriel Suswam (Benue), Ibrahim Idris (Kogi), Jonah Jang (Plateau) and Patrick Yakowa (Kaduna). Yobe State Governor Ibrahim Gaidam abstained from voting, while Bauchi State Governor Isa Yuguda did not attend the meeting.

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