We won’t attend NGF retreat, says Jang group

Factional Chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum
who is also the Governor of Plateau State, Mr.
Jonah Jang has dissociated members of his faction
from the planned retreat being organised by the
Forum under the leadership of the Governor of
Rivers State, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi.
The NGF has scheduled a retreat for March 13 and
14 in Lagos where issues like corruption,
agriculture, education, security and others are to be
discussed by eminent Nigerians and scholars.
Invitations by Amaechi for the event were sent to all
the governors, including the faction being led by
Jang.
However, Jang in a statement released in Abuja
and signed by the Media Officer in charge of his
faction of the NGF, Mr. Kassim Yakubu stated that it
has come to his knowledge that there is a program
in circulation naming its members as participants in
the said retreat.
The statement further described the action as a
cunning attempt to give the retreat credibility
following what he described as “the dismal showing
of the first one held in Sokoto last year.
“They have realised that Nigerians now know that
they are an opposition governors forum and the only
way to get credibility now is to invoke the names of
governors who clearly do not belong to their group
nor share in their vision of turning the Governors
Forum into an anti federal government body.”
He said the first retreat was an anti-Federal
Government and that Nigerians would want the
governors to stick to their primary roles of
governing their states instead of attending retreats.
“The first retreat turned out to be an anti federal
government venting exercise and did not gain any
traction with the general public who want the
governors to stick with their primary functions of
running their states and the objectives of the
Nigeria Governors’ Forum which is to work in
cohesion with all other tiers of government to
deliver needed development to the Nigerian people”,
the Jang group further said.
The statement predicted that the planned retreat
would turn out to be another federal government
bashing get-together where the opposition script
would be acted out.