By Rotimi Fasan
IN a few months time, precisely six months, a sizeable number of current office holders, including governors, would be leaving office having served out two full terms prescribed by the Constitution.

But this stark fact is not enough to dissuade many of those in the situation from trying to entrench themselves further in a position they are to vacate soon.

Rather than writing their handover notes and getting their baggage ready to leave their official quarters in different states, some of these office holders are seeking new titles to add to their resumes.

While some are content to play godfather, others are warming up to return either as senators or president. What I find intriguing, however, is the sudden importance that is being attached to a rather nondescript organisation, a conclave of otherwise undistinguished rulers.

I have never seen the association in which state governors band together under the umbrella of a so-called Governors’ Forum as one to be taken seriously precisely because I’m at a loss seeing what value it adds to the constitutional responsibilities of the governors, beyond creating yet another avenue for people already encumbered by their membership of often idle bodies to waste precious hours that could be better applied. I’m yet to be persuaded otherwise.

But thinking of the controversy that followed the nomination/selection of Governor Gbenga Daniel of Ogun State to the position of chairman of the Governors’ Forum, a foreigner would be forgiven to think the Forum, to say nothing of the position of its chair, is both constitutional and significant to the delivery of the duties of governor.

The Forum, as it is, is PDP-dominated but that hasn’t stopped governors outside the PDP fold from taking interest in its executive committee if one considers the involvement of Edo governor, Adams Oshiomole, in the horse-trading involved in finding a successor to the vacated seat of chairman of the Forum lately occupied by Bukola Saraki, now a presidential aspirant. From all indications Governor Saraki doesn’t want to be succeeded by Gbenga Daniel.

Among Daniel’s ‘sins’ are the many issues that have pitched him against legislators and other PDP politicians in and outside Ogun State. Of these various sins there is hardly any one of the governors completely free of similar stains in their different domains. Daniel’s major sin, apparently, is the fact that he is a coordinator of the Goodluck Jonathan 2011 presidential campaign. This surely locks him in battle with Bukola Saraki and his supporters.

Therefore, Daniels’s ascension to Saraki’s seat has been put on hold, or so we must now believe. Saraki claims he is yet in office just as Daniel says he has more than enough to engage him in Ogun that he couldn’t contemplate adding to that.

What is of concern to one in all this is the question of the relevance of the Governors’ Forum to the constitutional responsibilities of governing a state.  Beyond meeting their needs for self aggrandisement, these governors need to instruct the rest of us how their duties are enhanced by their membership of the Forum as to warrant the single-minded pursuit of the position of chair of the body by some of them and the determination of others to thwart such ambitious ones.

As far as I can see, the Governors’ Forum provides no more platform for personal or group achievement than is already provided by the office of a governor. It is a mere sinecure and whoever leads it carries no constitutional mandate or authority than that already provided by the Constitution of Nigeria. There is no executive power attached to membership of the group or office of its leader.

Perhaps for those obsessed with the acquisition of titles for its own sake, it may constitute some kind of pedestal of recognition but such recognition is, again, as I have been stating hardly weightier than that already available to individual members of the Forum.

True the body came into some form of prominence, gained some relevance, in the wake of the constitutional crisis that threatened to engulf the country after some people chose to play politics with the state of health of our late president, Umar Yar’Adua.

The Governors’ Forum was one of diverse groups of ‘stakeholders’ that had interests either to advance and protect, and so had to be consulted as to what should be done to break the impasse created by the unconscionable antics of the likes of Michael Aondoakaa, disgraced former Attorney General and Minister of Justice.

It had hardly been of any relevance before and since after. There are regional replicas of the Governors’ Forum with the Northern arm currently led by Niger State’s Babangida Aliyu. Their last major task involved their coming together to decide what the North’s position should be on whether Goodluck Jonathan should be supported (or not) in his bid to contest the next election. Even they couldn’t reach a consensus. Their collective battle has since become the individual war of Adamu Ciroma.

But to go back to my earlier point, the Governors’ Forum gained some political leverage following the poisonous politics that was orchestrated around Yar’Adua’s health. It’s that advantage it has been pressing up till this moment. Otherwise, there is hardly anything to recommend it as a serious body. If and when members come together under its fold, they do so, it seems, but to cover up for their individual lapses and insecurities.

Those sure of their pedigree and achievement don’t need such a body to stamp their presence on public consciousness.

At a time the Jonathan administration claims there is an urgent need to cut down on protocols and the proliferation of titles among public officials- it’s non-performers like those currently pitched in battle over the control of the Forum that need such a body to register their relevance.

Although widely acknowledged for his achievements, Raji Fashola is not a prominent member of the Governor’s Forum, does not need it to win public approval for his efforts.

Nor should any serious-minded person do. Let the noise being made about finding a leader for the Governors’ Forum, a conclave of time-servers, stop now.