Southern Governors’ Meeting, A Gang-Up Against Northerners – Sani Yabagi

Posted by African Examiner Featured, Latest Headlines, News Across Nigeria Tuesday, July 6th, 2021

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – Sani Yabagi, the national chairman of the Action Democratic Party (ADP), says Nigeria’s southern governors meeting was a gang-up against northerners.

Yabagi berated the governors for issuing an ultimatum to end open grazing in the southern part of the country.

It could be recalled that the governors held a meeting in Lagos, the second in a few months, to discuss serious national issues.

At the end of the meeting, a communiqué was issued in which they opposed the three per cent revenue sharing formula prescribed by the Petroleum Industry Bill and insisted on the open grazing ban.

They also insisted on electronic transmission of election results and that the southern region should produce the next president come 2023.

Reacting, Yabagi, who was a guest on Channels TV described the southern governors’ meeting and decisions as a gang-up against the North and the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.

“I think the coming together of the governors of southern extraction is the very wrong way to go about the issues of politics that affect the nation,” Mr Yabagi argued. “Because the message here, unfortunately, is like ganging up against the rest of Nigeria, particularly the North, by state actors who should be the people that protect and advance the unity of this country.”

He further disclosed that all the demands contained in the governors’ communiqué were divisive and unhealthy for the country’s unity.

He continued: “All the things listed in that communiqué from their meeting seems to be a kind of ganging up against the North.

“When you look at the grazing issue, insecurity, the issue of politics of 2023, how can we have elected officials, governors for that matter, coming in this manner to emphasise things that divide us? Not talking about things that unite the country beats my imagination.”