18th May, 2012
Considering the electoral misfortune of 2011 and the zeal to avoid the political blunder in future elections, the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, and the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, have come together with a grand plan to form an alliance that will effectively uproot the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in 2015.
Among the plans in the latest alliance is the proposal to embark on grassroots mobilisation in order to ensure that members of the ACN and CPC or any other political party that keys into the merger agenda are well informed about the move.
Political Platform reliably gathered that the All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, is showing willingness to be part of the grand alliance.
The alliance is aimed at ensuring that members of the parties involved at ward, local government, state and federal levels work together to achieve the desired results on a fusion that will lead to the formation of one political party with a single logo.
The CPC presidential candidate in 2011, General Muhammadu Buhari, and his running mate, Pastor Tunde Bakare, were said to have held a meeting in Boudillon Road, Ikoyi, Lagos, residence of the Jagaban of Borgu Kingdom and national leader of ACN, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, recently. The meeting was said to be a follow-up to the one held in Abuja earlier.
Speaking on the meeting in an interview, Pastor Bakare said: “To the best of my knowledge, the two leaders of the parties have been talking even before the 2011 elections. And it is customary that parties seek ways of joining their resources together to win elections. It happens everywhere in the world. The Yoruba would say: ta ba nja, bi ti ka ku ko, meaning that “though we may be fighting yet we aren’t praying for any of us to die”.
“The CPC is not practising do-or-die politics. However, you may want to know what was discussed at that meeting. I think it is better you reach any of the two leaders. Either General Buhari or Tinubu himself. It should not be over sensationalised. We were coming from a Life Time award given to General Buhari.
“We finished late and it was around 12 midnight when we got there. We didn’t even spend up to 15 minutes or maximum of 30 minutes there. That couldn’t have been anything political. If I know you and I’m passing through your neighbourhood, I can decide to say hello to you. That was all that transpired,” he noted; adding, “As far as I know, the party’s hierarchy has formed a reform committee to look into the past activities and prepare for the future. Until the committee finishes its assignment, anybody talking about CPC affairs is just shooting into the air and singing what he likes to say. When that committee finishes and submits its report and strategic position taken on how to move the party forward, then it would be made public. Until then, it is mere guesswork.
Speaking also, a CPC chieftain and the party’s governorship candidate in April 2011 general elections in Enugu State, Mr Osita Okechukwu, said the issue of alliance was so dear to the party that Malam Nasir el-Rufai-led CPC Renewal had given it enough attention.
Okechukwu, who said the CPC regretted the collapse of the merger talks days to the 2011 presidential election, stated that the concerned parties are now determined to form an alliance to save Nigeria from collapse.
He said: “The CPC set up a renewal committee to look inward to see what we did at that time which we could have done differently. And this issue of alliance or merger or whatever you can call it was very topical on the agenda and luckily the leadership of the CPC and the BOT are in support of the new move.
“We are trying to contrive a new pregnancy and we are hoping that it will be delivered safely. We regretted the abortion of the previous pregnancy between the ACN and the CPC. But in doing this now, they say, necessity is the mother of invention, General Buhari as a patriot and democrat and Asiwaju Tinubu and his own group as patriots and democrats, they have seen what they could do have done differently and they said okay how do we now help Nigeria? As of today, Nigeria is sliding dangerously towards a failed state.
“Nigeria is not a failed state yet but it is sliding towards that direction. There is Renewal Committee. So it’s a holistic movement because of the urgency to save Nigeria.
“The party is going to change name. We might change logo. These are things you have to enlighten people about because the other time when we wanted to do it, it was said that it was too close to the election,” Okechukwu said.