Alliance Talks Ongoing – ACN Scribe
- Details
- Category: Politics
- Published on Friday, 11 March 2011 05:23
- Written by Leadership
- Hits: 1962
The alliance talks among the leading opposition parties in the country aimed at stopping the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the April polls are still going on but only being kept away from the public for tactical reasons.
The talks among the ACN, the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) shortly before the closure of the submission of the parties’ candidates for the elections to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) last month and geared towards floating a single party to contest against the PDP, could not yield any fruit due to irreconcilable differences among them.
The ACN was holding talks with the leadership of the CPC on one the hand and with the ANPP on the other hand. But the failure of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to convince the CPC standard bearer, General Muhammadu Buhari to dump his party and join the ACN was largely seen as responsible for the failure.
General Buhari, on his part, did not see his former party, the ANPP, as a dependable ally due to his recent experiences while in the party.
Although Tinubu had accused the ruling PDP of of sponsoring moles to thwart the talks, both General Buhari and a presidential aspirant of the ACN, Alhaji Attahiru Bafarawa, faulted this claim. Instead, the two held the former Lagos State Governor responsible for the collapse of the alliance talks.
But if what the ACN scribe told LEADERSHIP is anything to go by, then the last has not been heard of the alliance. According to him, the opposition parties are still talking but only decided to keep it away from the public. He said once an agreement is reached, the whole world would know before the election.
“We (the opposition) are still talking among ourselves about the alliance. We have decided to keep it away from the media for strategic reasons. That is why some people are thinking that the alliance talks have failed. The alliance talks are still ongoing and, by the time we reach a concrete conclusion, the whole world would hear from us whether some candidates would be asked to step down or it will be a fusion of the parties involved that we prefer. So, you just wait and see. All I can tell you is we have resolved to end the PDP maladministration in May.”
When asked to comment about the acceptability or otherwise of his party, Lawali said, “If you see our rallies, you would agree with me that our party is acceptable in virtually every state of the federation. Did you see our rallies in Kebbi, Bauchi, Jigawa, Uyo, Lagos, Ibadan, and Abeokuta? ACN is the party to beat. We are the leading party in the country today. People are tired of PDP.”
Speaking further, he declared, “Our rallies are real. They are not like that of the PDP where you see policemen all over the place with the rented crowd. ACN is not using rented crowds and we don’t carry people from one state to another. This is what the PDP is doing. We allow our candidates to invite the people and we go there to tell them the manifestoes and programmes of our party.”
When asked to confirm the rally scheduled at Kaduna (today), Lawali said, “We are going to Kaduna tomorrow (today), and, on Saturday, it will be the turn of Katsina. You would see our supporters trooping out en masse to welcome our candidates and our leaders. We have a blueprint to transform Nigeria when voted into power.”
