By Zailani Bappa
I have never written before to protect the APC as a political Party. And I will not. I have also not written to condemn a political party but its actors. And I do that all the time as it affects President Muhammadu Buhari as an institution in the politics of today's Nigeria. In doing so, I am guided by the fact that in all the political parties in Nigeria, we have the good in each and also the bad in each. The well crafted manifestoes of all the parties however, remain unblemished at all times.
Today, I will be mentioning the names of political parties and the desirability of their membership or otherwise because the topic borders on the politics of my hero, the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR. My focus today is on APC and a new political party, the SDP. The latter being a party formed after series of consultations among the majority of PDP leadership and mentors in the country. It is expected to be the new bottle that will contain the old wine.
It started when the trio of OBJ, IBB and Abdulsalami Abubakar met in Minna "to discuss the current political situation in Nigeria". Soon after, OBJ came up with a letter dressing down the PMB administration and asking him not to contest in 2019. IBB also followed with his own letter, also asking PMB to step aside for the younger generation. Significantly, however, OBJ said he was coming up with a political party that will oust PMB in 2019 if he refused to step aside.
But PMB, whose body language to contest actually rattled them, finally announced his desire to re-contest in 2019. A group, under the leadership of Alhaji Tanko Yakasai, met in Abuja, announced itself as the new voice and true body of Northern Elders and went on air to announce its debut. They were all members of the discredited PDP. This attempt to form a new political party was born out of the fact that the PDP, after 16 years of maladministration by its actors, and having been willfully discredited by Nigerian electorates, can not package a candidate that can be trusted by Nigerians soonest. And I think they have finally come up with a party in the name of SDP to make a try.
Now, there is a group of politicians who were, in late 2014, referred to as the new PDP. They are those who were dissatisfied with the way PDP excluded them in the last lap of its administration. They were a major bloc that formed the merger of many other blocks and parties to form the APC. Today, they want to pull out from the merger because they are once again, dissatisfied with the style of PMB administration. Their bus stop is expected to be the new SDP founded from the cooling ashes of the PDP.
But what I notice is an ongoing politicking that might be wrong or right. It was reported that the nPDP will pull out of the merger. The Vice President, Professor Osinbajo was said to have met with them. My worry is why the APC is worried on one hand and why the nPDP is foot dragging its exit from APC on the other. Each should let go. I know my candidate, PMB is not worried. With, or without the nPDP members, he will still win in their respective home states. None of them can also contest against him and win, in their states of origin, or the larger constituency, Nigeria. This is because PMB is still a phenomenon in the politics of Nigeria today. He is still the favoured winner of the Presidential elections in 2019.
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