Party relays story of alliance bid

CPC snubbed my offer to step down, Ribadu alleges

Our door still open, Odumakin declares

Akande admits parley with Jonathan

THREE days to the presidential election, the   Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) alliance talks have collapsed.

The ACN, which confirmed the failure of the joint presidential ticket talks yesterday, said it was due to the non-commitment of the CPC to the deal. It also narrated the full story of the alliance bid and the journey to its failure.

Briefing reporters at the ACN headquarters in Abuja yesterday, the party’s National Chairman, Chief Bisi Akande, flanked by the National Secretary, Lawal Shuaibu and National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed, however, admitted the existence of talks between President Goodluck Jonathan and ACN leader and former Lagos State Governor, Senator Bola Tinubu.

But the CPC insisted yesterday that it had not ruled out the continuation of talks with both the ACN and other willing parties for the purpose of beating the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at the presidential poll.

The CPC said it would react to the claims of the ACN on the alliance talk because it believes that progressive minds forge a common front as they prepare for “this critical election.”

The ACN presidential candidate, Malam Nuhu Ribadu, who also reacted to claims that he had agreed to step down for his CPC counterpart,  Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, confirmed that the leadership of his party offered to make the sacrifice, but the CPC did not shift ground.

Ribadu told The Guardian yesterday that after painful and difficult consultation, the ACN leadership, in the overall interest of Nigeria, decided to lean backward by sacrificing the party’s presidential flagbearer, to pave the way for the CPC in an alliance between the two major opposition political parties.

Akande, who lamented the failure of the CPC to comply with the terms of the alliance talks that started last year, said ACN had decided that every party should go into Saturday’s presidential election on its own platform.

Reading a text titled: “Presidential election: There is no pact between ACN and CPC”, Akande said: “The ACN wishes to inform all its teaming supporters as well as Nigerians that there is no alliance between the party and the CPC ahead of Saturday’s presidential election.

“While it is true that representatives of both parties have engaged in talks aimed at forging an alliance that could dislodge the PDP, we regret to announce that such talks have not led to any alliance. We as a party that believes in democratic values have therefore decided that in the over all interest of the parties involved, our democracy as well as our country, it is better for each of the parties to go into the presidential election on its own platform,” he said.

The ACN chief further hinted that should there be no clear winner at the end of the presidential election, the party would decide on which way to go.

“If at the end of election on Saturday there is no clear winner, we will make a decision on which way to go, in the overriding interest of all Nigerians”, he said.

Blaming the CPC leadership further for the collapse of the alliance talks, Akande said the only condition that would make ACN to resume talks with Buhari is that all arrangements be based on the parties’ performance in the National Assembly election, held last Saturday.

“We will insist that things be done according to our performance in the last election.”

The ACN boss also confirmed the reported talks between President Jonathan and Tinubu.

He said: “Since last Saturday’s election, the President has opened a discussion with us. He has been sending our friends to us. He has been sending our leaders to us; traditional rulers and so on. But it is difficult for us to accept the reach out of Mr. President because of the company he keeps, that is the PDP. As a person, we respect his efforts, we appreciate his reach out, but because he belonged to the PDP, there is nothing we can do. It will not be convenient for us to ask our supporters to vote for the PDP.”

The ACN boss also denied entering into an agreement with Jonathan to form a government of national unity of any form.

“The ACN never discussed any detail of what will be the nature of the coming together. And you know that the ACN never believes in the Government of National Unity. We believe in proper collaboration.”

Giving further insight into how the alliance talks between ACN and CPC crumbled, Akande said: “The alliance has not been possible because the CPC has not been reaching out to us; and we don’t want it to appear as if we are not confident of ourselves.

“When we waited and we don’t have such a reach out from the CPC, we decided to move close to them so that we can resume our discussion. And I am grateful to some patriots from the North who tried to mid-wife the coming together all over again. But until this morning, by 12.30 mid-night (Wednesday), we never started any talk. But we decided on some preliminaries and we thought certain things should have been done before 11.00 a.m., but when we waited till 1.00 p.m. and we did not see any response, we started coming for this press conference.

“In our own opinion, we cannot keep waiting because election is coming up on Saturday. If we keep waiting, we may be guilty of intransigence on the part of our supporters and the country at large, so we need to get our people to go to the field and start mobilising for election for our party and not for the alliance, the negotiation of which has not started very seriously.”

The former Osun State governor also recalled how Buhari in 2006 suddenly abandoned the Action Congress (AC) after being in robust discussion with the latter party throughout 2005, to contest the 2007 elections on the platform of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP).

He said the party resumed discussion with Buhari in October 2010 towards the current elections, after the CPC chief visited him at his Ogudu, Lagos home on the need to work together.

As a result of this, ACN leadership set up a three-man committee comprising the governors of Osun and Ekiti states, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola and Dr. Kayode Fayemi, as well as a former Ekiti State governor, Chief Niyi Adebayo, to iron out areas of disagreement with the CPC team.

Akande disclosed that the committee submitted its report on October 25, “only to discover to their amazement that the Buhari team had entered into an agreement with the International Centre for Reconstruction and Development (ICRD) a.k.a Save Nigeria Group (SNG).

“They resolved that the CPC would produce the President while SNG would produce the Vice President in an agreement that was witnessed and signed by Dr. Almajiri Geidam and Aminu Bello Masari for the CPC and Dr. Gbolahan Bakare and Yinka Odumakin for the SNG.”

Notwithstanding this, Akande, in a letter to the CPC’s National Chairman, a copy of which he sent to Buhari, stated: “You will recall the visit of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari to my house in Lagos sometimes in September this year. This necessitated the need for the two parties to come together under a common platform for the purpose of 2011 general elections. The most recent of these efforts was the ACN Niyi Adebayo-led team and CPC Aminu Masari-led team, which had its first meeting in Abuja on Tuesday, October 5, 2010.

“In spite of the fact that we are the senior partner in this arrangement, we decided to put our resources at the disposal of the CPC presidential candidate, but they appear unimpressed with the offer and could not meet our only demand”, said Ribadu.

The ACN only demand, according to him, was that the ACN produce the vice presidential candidate. “But the leadership of the CPC could not prevail upon its vice presidential candidate, Pastor Tunde Bakare, to step down accommodating our only demand,” he said.

Corroborating Ribadu’s claims, Akande, in a statement, said there is no alliance between the party and the CPC in the presidential election.

The ACN and CPC emerged with stunning victories in last Saturday’s legislature’s elections to check the dominance of the PDP but officials of both parties feel that only a united front would see them decisively snatching the presidency from PDP, necessitating renewed negotiations.

A similar attempt at collaboration between the two parties before electoral hostilities failed over disagreement over names of the party that would emerged, the logo as well as the flag of the new party. The politics of who gets what, how and when also played significant role in scuttling chances of an alliance.

Ribadu reportedly reconciled to giving up his quest for the presidency in the conviction that it is a small price to pay to ensure that Nigeria can move forward by thwarting the PDP.

Ribadu is said to be considering that in the current circumstances, he must avoid being seen as the stumbling block on the road to the historic defeat of the PDP.

Part of the deal was that if the deal had gone through and the alliance leads to victory in the presidential contest, the ACN would produce the leadership of the National Assembly when it reconvenes in June 2011.

Last Saturday, Jonathan flew into Lagos to meet with Tinubu, to woo the ACN leaders

Media Assistant to Buhari, Yinka Odumakin, told The Guardian yesterday that the party cannot react to the ACN claim as it was not yet time to do so.

“For now, we have nothing to say about the alliance talk and claims by the ACN. We will at the appropriate time react to this and other issues as we are pre-occupied with Saturday’s election,” Odumakin stated.

However, CPC National Publicity Secretary, Rotimi Fashakin, said all has not been lost in the alliance talk, insisting that the party still leaves its doors open for any alliance that will ensure that the ruling PDP was shown the exit door on Saturday.

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Posted by admin on Apr 14 2011. Filed under Elections 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry