Coronavirus: Governors forum postpone meeting indefinitely

The Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) has postponed indefinitely an emergency meeting earlier scheduled to hold tomorrow.

The postponement was confirmed yesterday by NGF’s Head of Media, Abdulrazaque Bello-Barkindo.

Barkindo had

told some journalists that the suspended meeting was called to address how the effect of the crash in the price of crude oil as a result of coronavirus could be mitigated.

He added that the meeting might be used to take decisions on how they would run their budgets, especially with regards to payment of salaries, considering the crash in oil prices, which will lead to lower revenues or allocations from the Federal Government.

Though no reason was given for the suspension of the meeting, Daily Trust gathered that the decision might be influenced by the announcement by Governor of Bauchi State, Bala Mohammed, who announced yesterday that he was on self-isolation because of his close contact with the son of former vice president who tested positive to coronovairus.

The Bauchi governor attended a meeting of National Economic Council (NEC) chaired by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at Aso Rock along with fellow governors last Thursday.

He also attended last Wednesday’s NGF meeting held at its National Secretariat in Maitama, Abuja, where a decision was reached to constitute a seven-member sub-committee chaired by the Governor of Kaduna State, Malam Nasir El-Rufai to “comprehensively” review the current trend and advise state governments on the set of actions required to address challenges of the Coronavirus pandemic on economy.