•Ahead Of 2023 Elections
While the plans of the two major political parties in Nigeria to field their preferred candidates for the 2023 presidential elections thickens, there are strong indications that leaders and key stakeholders and partners in the APC. PDP and some of the emerging parties have concluded a plan to form a mega political party immediately after the APC’s February convention.
City People learnt that the emerging party, which identity is yet to be revealed, would be an existing political party that has agreed to fuse its structure into the mega platform.
The mega party, it was gathered, was to consummate the various consultations and negotiations among potentially aggrieved parties’ stakeholders from the major political parties, to create a formidable alternative democratic party to drive the political rescue and salvation of Nigeria through the ballot in 2023.
While some pundits believe that the sponsor and partners of the new mega parties are those who have fallen out of favour with their respective parties, it is important to hint that the would-be members are yet to decide and will only join when the party congresses and conventions do not serve their respective interests. The majority of those who were part of the failed attempt to form a mega party during the build-up to the 2019 general election have been contacted.
Many are willing to join this new effort. As a group, the progenitors are already part of the movement and it is on good record that some PDP and APC members are already contacting one another with varying degrees of commitment.
For a pilot movement, Governors Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State, Willie Obiano of Anambra State, Badaru Abubakar of Jigawa State, and former House of Representatives Speaker Dimeji Bankole, former governor of Imo State Rochas Okorocha, are among the prominent figures of the ruling APC and opposition PDP being wooed to come on board.
The challenge against the to-be partners from the APC is the February convention. Sources from the APC says there is a high chance that the APC February 26 convention may not hold, as a deliberate modality to delay the process and discourage any party member who may be aggrieved at the end of the day to join forces with any other party.
If at the end of the convention, some stakeholders should emerge and do not seem to serve the interest of some of the party members, they will have ample time to consult and consider joining forces with the opposition party that is already standing by the line, to welcome them. The possibility of a delay tactic to postpone the convention is, therefore, on the table as permutations continue.
Coincidentally, there was a meeting held last week by The Leaders of Conscience under the aegis of the Nigerian Consultative Front (NCfront) to launch a mega party immediately after the convention.
At the meeting were Prof. Pat Utomi, Dr. Usman Bugaje, former Kano Governor, Engr Musa Rabiu Kwankwaso, presidential aspirant, Prof Kingsley Moghalu, chairman, NRM, Senator Saidu Dansadau, chairman, chairman, ADC, Chief Raph Okey Nwosu and Prof. Osita Ogbu, a former Economic Adviser to the President of Nigeria.
Others were Hadjia Naja’atu Mohammed, Prof Mrs Remi Sonaiya, Pastor Ituah Ighodalo, Dr Sadiq Gombe, Comrade Promise Adewusi, Mni, former Deputy President of the NLC, Chief Akin Braithwaite, Arc Ezekiel Nya Etok, and Lady Khadija Okunnu-Lamidi, among others. While the party has given room for the future alliance, it is yet to discuss the question of candidacy.
While there are still apprehension and doubts as to who will leave the APC, unfolding events in the last six months suggest that the party has been polarised along with the initial forces that created the movement. The most aggrieved of the union is the CAN and the new PDP.
Recall that APC as a party came into being just a year before the general elections and it was a collective force from two parties, CPC, and APC before a substantial number of PDP key members decamped and completed the movement to produce the President who originally is from the CPC. Within a year after legally taking over power from the PDP, members of the new party, APC were already feeling short-changed and selections and appointments into what was known as juicy offices seemed lopsided. Members of the CPC were smiling to Aso rock heading one parastatal or taking cabinet appointments while the ACN and the new PDP looked on for grace. It was after a few years that some of the key prodigal decampees from the PDP returned to their fold and began to rebuild. The people are, however not in a hurry to hold a convention until the outcome of the February convention of the APC, as pundits are of the opinion that whatever outcome that the APC convention produces, it will be either grave or powerful enough to destroy or strengthened the party the more, depending on the reaction of the losers. PDP is banking on the bad losers with influences. The picture of strong outgoing APC members, merging with a strong opposition PDP structure and their alliance with a third force to create a mega party will definitively spell doom for the APC, especially when the former Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC chairman, Attahiru Jega is in the equation. A slight postponement will no doubt cause some measurable impact on the part of the benefitting spectator, but a looming breakup is imminent as the party governors and lawmakers are still at war.
Will Asiwaju step down for Osinbajo? Will he embrace the vice president at the primaries? Can there be a primary that will join Osinabjo and Asiwaju as contenders? Who will coordinate the primaries? Will Osinbajo call the bluff of those appealing to him not to run against his former benefactor? Will Asiwaju leave the APC? Will the cabal consolidate themselves in power beyond 2023?
Pondering on these rhetorics, the mega party will not hesitate, if the political dynamism changes, to join hands with other similar ideological forces to create, collaborate, realign or endorse a credible alternative political party and ultimately field a candidate strong enough to battle the cabal.
-Joseph Seun Emmanuel
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