Regional & State News
Govs stall North’s unity meeting
By Vanguard
Jul 5, 2004, 18:12

An initiative to bolster the peace and unity of the North has been stalled as a grand meeting scheduled to hold in Kaduna tomorrow and Tuesday has been postponed indefinitely.

Sunday Vanguard learnt that one of the reasons for the postponement was the unavailability of some of the governors who were said to be on official business abroad.

The initiative, which is apparently a build-up on the efforts by the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) at deepening northern unity, Sunday Vanguard learnt, was at the instance of some Northern governors, with Jigawa State governor, Saminu Turaki as a motivating force.

Northern Governors’ Forum (NGF) and the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), which came together to hold the meeting for the purpose of expanding the frontiers of peace and unity in the North, announced the postponement of the meeting on account of reasons beyond their control.
The postponement of the Northern Peace and Unity meeting originally scheduled to hold on Monday and Tuesday, this week, was contained in a terse one-page statement jointly issued by the NGF and the ACF.
In the statement issued Friday by the NGF’s coordinating secretary, Alhaji Saidu Kakangi and ACF’s secretary-general, Col. Hamidu Ali, the organisations attributed the postponement of the meeting billed to hold at the Arewa House in Kaduna to “reasons beyond our control”.

“This is to inform all those invited through our letter dated 23rd June, 2004, to attend the Northern Peace and Unity meeting jointly organised by the Northern Governors Forum (NGF) and the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) and scheduled to hold on Monday, 5th and Tuesday 6th July, 2004, that the meeting is postponed for reasons beyond our control”, the organisation stated.

They added: “New date for the meeting would be communicated to you in due course. Inconveniences caused are highly regretted”.
The new leadership of the ACF has just rounded off a tour of the nineteen northern state during which it met the governors and got promises from them to help recover the value of northern unity and brotherliness, which the region’s founding fathers laboured hard to build.

The unity and peace meeting, as gathered, is a follow up to the tour and it is aimed at fashioning out ways of making northerners, both their leaders and followers, to know themselves better and be their brother’s keepers instead of fanning the embers of ethno-religious strife.

© Copyright 2000 - 2002 by Naijapost News