THE outfit called the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) is a waste of tax payers’ resources, and unconstitutional and a clear demonstration of lack of accountability in the presidential system of government, a legal luminary and immediate past president of the Court of Appeal, Justice Umaru Abdullahi has said. Justice Abdullahi was delivering a lecture on “Post Election Reconciliation and Healing” at the Umaru Musa Yar’adua University as part of activities for the swearing in of the state governor, Ibrahim Shema over the weekend. The former court of appeal president while drawing comparison between the parliamentary and presidential systems of government in Nigeria, frowned at the latter which he described as lacking in accountability, very expensive and exclusive in its operation.
“I keep asking myself for what purpose is this forum to the ordinary Nigerian. In spite of the prevalence of social vices bedeviling the people, the governors found it expedient to have a free ride and constitute that forum. We should not forget that their excellencies are members of the council of states, NEC and many more”, he pointed out.
He said the NGF has a secretariat in Abuja staffed with high profile officials who are the only ones that know what is going on there and worse of it is that they use their respective states and unbudgeted resources that could have been used for the purchase of drugs in hospitals to run them.
“I did a quick check in the Nigerian constitution and I could not find any provision for such forums and they all swore to protect the constitution.
“ I think the time has come for us to start speaking out on such type of executive excesses”, he added. Justice Abdullahi who quoted a defence by the former chairman of the forum and governor of Kwara State, Dr Bukola Saraki on the forum’s promotion of unity and integration, wondered where the forum was when things happened in Plateau, Kaduna and other parts of the country where citizens were surreptitiously rounded up and put in trucks back to their assumed home states. He said for genuine reconciliation and healing to take place we must go beyond statements and condemnations, and government must embrace a deliberate policy of healthy interaction, dialogue and consultation as exhibited by former Kano State governor, Ibrahim Shekarau.
The legal icon who flayed the total disconnection between people and authorities today due to what he described as game of deception by the so-called representatives of the people, advocated for a parliamentary system of government which, he said, is more transparent and cheaper to operate.
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