10th August, 2012
The Publicity Secretary of the Lagos State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Gani Taofeek, has said that the planned alliance of the opposition parties can never be a threat to the PDP, adding that his party will continue to rule until there is no more Nigeria.
Taofeek made this declaration during an interview with Political Platform also described the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, and the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, which are the front runners in the merger talks as “strange bedfollows from different extremes.”
“It can only be viable to the best of their hope that they merge; but in reality and to the best of our ability to collate politically, it is not viable at all. It is not viable in the sense that I see them as serious strange bedfollows from different extremes.
“If you talk of General Mohammadu Buhari, he is an extremist in terms of ideology and you don’t find somebody like him being comfortable to mix with some elements in the ACN. Buhari is presently the national leader of CPC and the party has just one state in Nigeria –Nasarawa. If you look at the calculation, whereas CPC has just one state, PDP has 28 states and ACN just six.
“So, six cannot rejoice over 28 states,” he stated.
He added that the only effect of the merger is that it will even elongate the 60-year dominance of PDP earlier predicted by our leaders.
It is rather a Tinubu thing. It is a Tinubu thing because he is trying to sustain the hold they have in the Southwest. He is now moving out of the Southwest to distract the PDP, but we cannot be distracted.
“Yes, Buhari is very ambitious, he really wants to become the civilian president of Nigeria, but unfortunately, he is under a very wrong nest. I would rather advise him to work out his modality on becoming a PDP member. With his membership of our great party, Buhari will get the type of support that will make him the president of Nigeria. He should know that whatever he is doing now will only make the leadership of the ACN more popular,” he said.
The Lagos State PDP spokesman said he has not seen how any opposition can muster the financial strength, population-wise, even intellectually to fight the PDP in 2015.
“They cannot, so they are not prepared. But they will have to exhibit what I will term political arrogance so that PDP will be scared. But the truth is that PDP is too big to be scared.
Taofeek stated that in terms of ideology and sincerity, the fact remains that people have also seen that ACN, CPC etc cannot be the alternatives.