ETIEBET ON NIGERIA'S 'CHOP-CHOP' GOVERNORS!!!

What does this overbearing influence of governors portend for the country? (CULLED FROM VANGUARD).

Honestly, what it portends for the country is that the outgoing governors want to continue to hold their various states to ransom, they want to continue to rule their state from outside and this is not good for democracy and this is not good for the states because they tend to want to turn the states to their personal properties, turn their states into dynasties so that at every turn, it will be their system, at every turn, it will be their group that will select their successors, select their National Assembly members, therefore they will perpetually have a hold on the state, that is not good for democracy and the action must be stopped this year.

Chief Donald Etiebet

I was running for the presidency in 1999, Ekwueme and myself, were the front-runners, then suddenly they brought out Obasanjo from prison and made him the presidential candidate, he did not have the support of the party before he came out, it was after he came out that he started mobilizing people who were working for us but at the end, he became the president but without party support and it was in this case that he took Atiku Abubakar who was a party man to be his vice-president, it was Atiku who started mobilizing the governors and in order to have a hold on the party in preparation for second term, he and Atiku worked together to mobilize the governors and that was how party structures were given to the governors in their various states. I personally fought the party in my state for two years that it cannot happen and when the structures was eventually given to Victor Attah, then I left the party and it was only when Obasanjo was going that I came back into the party by 2006.

Also, when Victor Attah wanted to impose his son in law on the party, I kicked against it and took all measures to stop him and that was how Godswill Akpabio came about and from then on, the governors started with the Governors Forum and they took steps and because they have voting rights at the National Executive Committee of the party and since they control the party in the states, they always have a chunk of the voting rights at NEC and as a result, we cannot change some of the actions they brought about.

So this is the war that is waging right now and we hope that the national leadership of the party would see the danger of wanting the outgoing governors to have their succession plans because this will eventually make them turn their states to their dynasties and themselves into monarchs. They will all move to the Senate and having a lot of resources, they will go there and make laws that will make them even be the ones to pick presidential candidates. So the party should see this danger ahead.