A meeting of the G7 governors in the
Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in the Kano State Governor’s Lodge in Asokoro
area of Abuja was, yesterday, disrupted after men of the Nigeria Police stormed
the venue of the meeting.
The detachment of policemen led by
the Divisional Police Officer of the Asokoro Division, who was in mufti,
invaded the meeting venue and immediately asked that the meeting be brought to
a close.
The arrival of the DPO and his quest
to see the Kano State governor, Governor Rabiu Kwankwanso, immediately led to a
standoff between him and the ADCs to the five governors present at the meeting.
Following the altercation, the DPO was allowed to enter the room where five of
the G7 governors were meeting with some other former governors and politicians
aligned with them in the Kawu Baraje led faction of the PDP.
Present at the meeting, according to
Vanguard sources, were Kwankwanso, and his colleagues from Jigawa,
Niger, Adamawa and Rivers, Alhaji Sule Lamido, Dr. Babangida Aliyu, Alhaji
Murtala Nyako and Mr. Rotimi Amaechi respectively.
Also present were the factional
national chairman of the PDP, Alhaji Kawu Baraje and other leaders of the
party. Alhaji Kashim Imam, a former Presidential Liaison Officer, PLO to the
Senate and one time close confidant of former President Olusegun Obasanjo but
now generally known to be in a working relationship with the APC controlled
government in Borno State.
Others were Senators Abubakar Saraki
and Abdullahi Adamu, Danjuma Goje immediate past governors of Kwara, Nasarawa
and Gombe States, former governor of Bayelsa State, Mr. Timipre Sylva, Senator
Aisha Alhassan and the factional national secretary of the PDP and former
governor of Osun State, Chief Olagunsoye Oyinlola. Also at the meeting were
Chief Sam Sam Jaja, the deputy national chairman of the nPDP, former governor
of Ekiti State, Chief Segun Oni and the national vice chairman of the PDP,
Northwest, Ambassador Ibrahim Kazaure.
Once he entered into the meeting
room, the DPO who came with six truck loads of policemen, it was learnt,
immediately told Governor Kwankwanso that the meeting be stopped. He claimed he
was acting on orders from above, though he allegedly did not say on whose
specific orders.
The governors, it was learnt,
rebuffed him asking him to produce a search warrant as they alleged that for
him to enforce his order he must have a search warrant or court order.
Vanguard learnt further that the governors
told him that it was the height of lawlessness for the DPO to disperse
governors meeting as they told him that if he could do that to governors then
ordinary men on the streets were not free from intimidation.
Governor Sule Lamido was said to
have also quipped to the DPO that his instruction was clearly illegal, telling
him that in the early eighties opposition governors belonging to the
Progressive Governors Alliance met regularly without harassment from the ruling
party or government in power.
Governor Rotimi Amaechi on his part
said, “We were in a meeting here when the DPO of Asokoro came to say that he
was sent by powers from above to arrest us and he came with troops of mobile
policemen in six vehicles. But we refused to go and asked that they should come
and take us.”
Yesterday’s development would be the
second time in one week that a meeting of the G7 governors would be disrupted.
A similar meeting of the governors in the Sokoto State Governors Lodge in
Asokoro, Abuja was disrupted last week.
One of the governors told Vanguard
that it is now feared that authorities of the Federal Capital Territory
Administration could now move in to tamper with the certificate of occupancy of
the Kano Governor’s Lodge following earlier threats against the Adamawa State
Liaison office in Abuja which the FCT authorities alleged is being used for
illegal political activities.
Culled from Vanguard
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