- Presidency, nPDP members meet today over grievances
- Momoh: Buhari’ll be re-elected with or without nPDP
- Anglican Primate: Nigerians are tired of empty promises
- Methodist Prelate: Christians won’t vote wicked, religious bigots
Members of the New Peoples Democratic Party (nPDP) bloc in the All Progressives Congress (APC) are weighing three options as they hold separate meetings today with President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
The three options followed from the outcome of an enlarged meeting of the group, which was held in Abuja a few days after the first direct meeting with the national leadership of APC. The first option for nPDP, according to sources, is for members to see through the on-going discussions and negotiate a favourable outcome for the aggrieved group.
The second option is for nPDP members to pull out of APC and join an existing party with written agreement to forestall a repeat of their experience in APC. The third option for nPDP is for its members to pull out of APC and form a new party.
A source told New Telegraph that the third option has been shelved because of the exigency of time. Some members of nPDP favour aligning with one of the existing parties while others root for a return to PDP. Leader of nPDP, Alhaji Kawu Baraje, yesterday, confirmed that the aggrieved APC members are considering the three options. He stated that a committee has been constituted to fine tune their positions on the options available to nPDP.
Baraje had on Wednesday met with an enlarged body of nPDP where he briefed them on the outcome of the meeting with the APC national leadership. Baraje said the meeting, which had Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki; Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara; Sokoto State governor, Aminu Tambuwal, former governor of Osun State, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, ex-Adamawa State governor, Admiral Murtala Nyako (rtd), as well as about 50 federal legislators and other key politicians in attendance.
Baraje also confirmed today’s meeting with both Buhari and Osinbajo. Although he expressed hope that the meeting will bring a new lease of life to the ruling party, he nevertheless noted that the outcome will determine the eventual decision of nPDP on its stay within APC.
The first meeting will be with Osinbajo after which nPDP leaders will sit with Buhari to brief the president on the outcome of their engagements thus far. Speaking with newsmen in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital yesterday, Baraje commended members of the group and concerned Nigerians who share their view and concern about their plight in the ruling party and the nation at large. He expressed hope that “at the end of today’s meeting and consultations with the president and his vice, all the aggrieved members of the group, the leadership of the party and the nation at large will come out stronger and more united in the general interest of the citizenry.”
According to him, the next line of action of the group will depend on the outcome of the meeting, which will be either to still remain in APC or take other decisions. Baraje had, last week, told newsmen that the group will consult widely on the crisis in APC before taking any decision on whether to remain or leave the party, just as it did with PDP in the build up to the 2015 general elections.
The nPDP had in April 27th letter told the APC leadership and President Muhammadu Buhari to stop treating its members as outcasts and meddlesome interlopers in the party they rightly belong.
They accused the Buhari- led government of sidelining, harassing, intimidating and victimising its members. Listing its grievances, the nPDP said “in the constitution of the Federal Executive Council (FEC), the New PDP bloc was generally sidelined as virtually no position was conceded to it.” It added that there has been no significant patronage and appointments of its members to executive positions in various government agencies.
The aggrieved nPDP stated that “harassment, intimidation and persecution of former New PDP leaders by the government, is still an ongoing affair.” The APC, which was formed in 2013, is an amalgam of the then Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Congress for Progressives Change (CPC), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), a faction of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and the New PDP.
Meanwhile, former Minister of Information and a chieftain of the APC, Prince Tony Momoh, has said that the party will not stop those who want to leave from doing so as President Muhammadu Buhari has done enough to guarantee his re-election in 2019.The former National Chairman of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) on which platform Buhari contested the 2011 presidential election, told New Telegraph that the President will win the 2019 election with or without thet nPDP members.
His words: “In 2003, when Buhari first contested on the platform of the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP), he had three million votes. In 2007, he had six million votes and late Umaru Yar’Adua, who won the election, agreed that the election was manipulated. “In 2011, he had 12 million votes and in 2015, he had 15 million votes. There are 73 million registered voters and each of them is important and we don’t want to lose any of the votes, but we are not going to force anybody to vote for us.
That is why we are going to depend on what we have done. Achievements of the school feeding and social empowerment programmes of the government are there for everyone to see. The feat so far recorded in the agricultural sector is also there, unfortunately, people do not speak about these achievements. But, they will speak for Buhari in the 2019 presidential election. “Everybody knows that there is no change without the people being changed, but nobody wants to be changed.
So, there are lots of negative reactions because of the activities Buhari has gotten involved in, but he will never refrain from doing what will impact positively on the lives of Nigerians in the long run. “So, if some people want to go, we won’t force them to remain in the party. In 2019, votes would be cast, whoever wins will take over government, it is not a do-or-die for Buhari, but I can assure you that we have worked hard enough for Buhari to win.”
Momoh further said that Buhari’s edge over his challengers is that his support is grassroots based, insisting that a second term will see him consolidating on what he has so achieved. On the mobilization against the President by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Momoh said: “There is freedom of association and you can move from one party to the other.
The former president has a right to what he is doing, but I think the problem with him is that he is allergic to anybody succeeding and that is a personal problem he must cure. He should be able to celebrate success whether it was by his own effort or any other person’s effort.”
.new telegraph
