THE Nigeria Governors’ Forum  is currently divided over who succeeds ailing President Umaru Yar’Adua in 2011, the Nigerian Tribune can authoritatively reveal.

According to a highly placed source within the forum, “shortly after we successfully ensured that the National Assembly passed the resolution empowering the vice-president to act as president, the forum has been torn due to clandestine moves by some members of the forum, particularly those who are currently serving out their second term, to succeed the incumbent president, who it is believed, would not run in 2011 due to his failed health.”

The source, who pleaded anonymity, disclosed further that, “what is currently going on within the forum, as far as who gets what in 2011 is, to say the least, unfortunate.  The body is already divided along the lines of second term governors and first term governors.  Those who are serving out their tenure are now engaged in nocturnal meetings and visits to their bases in order to solicit their support when the time comes.”

It was also gathered that some northern governors were the ones mostly involved in the recent schemings within the forum because of the decision of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to retain the presidency in the North.

In a telephone interview with a highly placed member of the forum, he disclosed that, “if this thing is not carefully handled, it could lead to the disintegration of the forum, which had in the recent past helped in the sustenance of our nascent democracy.  You won’t believe if I tell you the high level horse-trading and night consultations that had been going on across state boundaries in the last few weeks.”

It was also gathered that apart from the fact that the open battle for nomination for the plum job was only being fought by second-term governors, members of the forum, who are first termers and who are in the majority, were said to be rooting for their term mates, who they reason, would do their biddings when they got there.

Nigerian Tribune reliably learnt that first-term governors from the North are covertly soliciting for the support of their colleagues.

As a result of this, Nigerian Tribune also gathered that there is a cold war between first term and second term governors, though they appear in public as one united body. 

In the South-South geo-political zone where the office of the vice-president had been zoned by the PDP, some of the incumbent governors were alleged to be already scheming to be favoured for the job.  But, at least, two of the serving governors from the zone had been reported to have turned down entreaties from kingmakers in the zone to vie for the office. Those who are already positioning themselves for the position, it was gathered, had, in the recent past, been engaging in campaigns of calumny against their colleagues, using the press.

It was reliably gathered from a competent source that one of the South-South  governors with an eye on the vice-president seat had, during a meeting with the then vice-president, welcomed a governor from the zone to the meeting with the shout:  “announcing the arrival of the vice-president-in-waiting.”

The said meeting with the then vice-president, who is now acting president, would have been aborted if the acting president had not intervened to calm the governor, who was said to have been angered by the utterance of his fellow governor.

Nigerian Tribune further learnt that since the confrontation at the Villa, the two governors, who are first termers, were not seeing eye to eye until recently when they had to close ranks to support the acting presidency of Dr Goodluck Jonathan.