The political alliance of top opposition politicians made up of General Muhammadu Buhari, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, former Sokoto State governor Attahiru Bafarawa and former Lagos State governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu may be heading for the rocks as a fresh dispute has emerged over the proposed new platform.
The alliance had proposed to adopt as its collective platform a modified Action Congress (AC) which was expected retain only its logo, the broom and lose other identities like the name, the headquarters building, the elected officials from the ward to the national levels and to have a new membership register.
However, a source said the last National Executive Committee meeting of the AC in Benin, Edo State, took an extreme position that will make it difficult for any member of the group, Buhari’s Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and Bafarawa’s Democratic Peoples Party (DPP) to agree to the merger.
A source at the meeting said AC pointedly said it will not subject itself to the changes being proposed. The proposal to adopt a ‘modified AC’ was said to have been reached after the party argued that it has two governors, several members of the National Assembly as well as dozens of state legislators who would be subjected to litigation should they move to another party.
The idea of registering a new party was jettisoned because the alliance said it did not want to be rubbished by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). It cited as example of the length of time and the rigours that Buhari’s allies took to get the CPC registered.
Only last week, General Muhammadu Buhari announced that he had formally joined the CPC and would accept to run for the presidency on its platform if the party gives him the chance. He also said on a BBC Hausa programme at the weekend that no politician who has a case to answer in court would be given the chance to contest in the party.
Further indications that the alliance is shaky came up yesterday when the trio of Buhari, Tinubu and Bafarawa were absent at a one day conference on Electoral Reform organised by the National Democratic Movement (NDM) in collaboration with the Coalition of Democrats for Electoral Reforms (CODER) and other civil society organisations at the Sheraton Hotel in Abuja.
Atiku Abubakar, who was expected to chair the event, arrived at the venue at 10 am prompt only to see that there were very few participants present and who did not include his co principals in the movement. He left shortly after he arrived at the venue.
However, the meeting was finally held with representatives of the leaders such as Alhaji Sule Yahaya Hamma, Senator Lawal Shuaibu, Senator Olorunimbe Mamora and Dr. Usman Bugaje in attendance. They respectively represented Buhari, Bafarawa, Tinubu and Atiku.
When contacted, a source in the alliance who preferred not to be named dismissed suggestions that the NDM alliance was collapsing. He said the new mega party will emerge at the end of this month after the next meeting of the group at the Sheraton Hotel on March 30.
When asked why the top leaders boycotted yesterday’s event, the source said General Buhari had sought special permission to be absent because he is billed to give out his niece’s hand in marriage at his home town of Daura in Katsina State this Saturday.
On Bafarawa’s absence, he said the former governor was in Kano on Sunday to commiserate with the victims of the fire that gutted the Kantin Kwari market. He said even though Bafarawa was billed to return to Abuja on Sunday in order to attend the NDM meeting on Monday morning, he was held up in Kano by his hosts and a Freedom Radio programme that he participated in.
"When he saw that it was late and considering the circumstances surrounding him, he decided to postpone the journey for reasons of his personal security," the soured said, adding however that the former governor had called to express his apology.
No comments:
Post a Comment