* LP rules out support for merger

WHILE varied reactions continued to trail the emergence of a new political party that was floated on Wednesday, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Thursday offered to register it as long as it met required conditions.

The electoral body said that the decision of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) to form the All Progressive Congress (APC) was not out of place.

The Press Secretary to the INEC chairman, Mr. Kayode Idowu, noted that INEC was left with no option but to register the new party once it satisfied the provision of the Electoral Act.

He said: "The law prescribes the steps that must be taken on issues relating to the merger of political parties. As long as those provisions of the law are adhered to, INEC as a law-abiding outfit would comply with the provisions of the law.

"We are waiting; I don't know how long it would take them to meet stipulations of the guidelines spelt out in the Electoral Act. We are not in position to say how soon they would come up with a formal request for that purpose because I am not in the position to say so. It is left to the parties concerned to do so."

Idowu said the merger deal would not in any way constitute any bottlenecks to INEC, noting: "We don't envisage any challenges at all. Once the law recognises the merger deal, ours is simply to comply with the provisions of the law as stipulated in Section 84 of the Electoral Act as amended."

Nevertheless, a discordant reaction came from a top member of APGA, Dr. Ifedi Okwenna.

Okwenna, who is the national secretary of the party, distanced APGA from the deal on the ground that it was still reaching out to its key members on the issue.

Okwenna said the Imo State Governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, was not permitted to act on behalf of the party on the merger deal .

There was a sharp division among some members of the National Assembly over the merger.

Addressing a press conference at the Senate, opposition lawmakers led by the Senate Minority Leader, George Akume, said the action of the opposition parties was meant to improve the worsening political and economic situation in the country.

But Uche Ekwunife from Anambra State at a press conference at the National Assembly Thursday said the leadership of APGA was not a party to the merger. She said individuals within the party were entitled to freedom of association but APGA as a party had not merged with any political party.

The youth wing of APGA has denied knowledge of any talks for merger with other political parties.

A statement by the APGA National Youth Leader, Mr. Okpara Ferguson Ogbonnaya, made available to reporters in Awka yesterday, said they read it on the pages of the newspaper just like other members of the party.

Ogbonnaya who condemned the statement, declared that it was ironic that some people belonging to a party in a democratic dispensation would contemplate taking action that would involve the totality of party members without allowing such a decision to be deliberated upon by the party.

The Labour Party (LP) has ruled out the possibility of a merger with APC. The Chairman of the party in Ondo State, Chief Olu Ogidan, said Thursday in Akure that rather than joining forces with other opposition elements to wrestle power from the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the LP would stand alone.

Ogidan was reacting to enquiries about why his party decided to stand alone when other non-PDP parties were merging.

According to him, "we are LP and we don't belong to those parties. There is actually no need for us to merge with them because we don't know their motive.

"At the moment, we don't believe there is any need for merger with any party because we are growing at a very fast pace in many states of the federation.

"Our focus now is to build our party to such a strength that we will be able on our own spread the message of development that we have witnessed in Ondo State to other states of the federation."

He, however, said when the time was ripe for it, the LP may consider associating with other political groupings "but we have another four-year term in Ondo State and 2015 of the presidential election is a bit far away."

The ACN assured Nigerians that the issue of who would fly the flag of APC in the 2015 presidential election would not tear the party apart.

He disclosed that the merger committee was looking into the leadership structure of the party and its manifesto.

In an exclusive interview with The Guardian yesterday in Abuja, the Publicity Secretary of the party, Lai Mohammed, said that the chieftains of the various parties like Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu, among others, were ready to see the party work and were also ready to make sacrifice.

He observed that a lot of consultations were held for several months before all the parties in the merger agreed to come up with a name and Logo.

Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State yesterday said the new party would succeed when leaders of the party sacrificed their personal aspirations in the interest of the nation.

During a visit to him by the former presidential candidate of the ANPP and former Governor of Kano State, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau who led a high-powered delegation of the party on a visit to him in Government House, Oshiomhole said: "All of us as leaders and followers should recognise for a merger to be fruitful, a level of sacrifices will be required and everyone will be required to moderate his aspiration and people must be ready to submit their personal interest to bigger national interest."

Shekarau, said one of the major assignments of the National Rebuilding and Inter-Party Committee of the ANPP was to reach out to other political parties of like minds to enrich the democratic process and give Nigerians an alternative choice.

Members of the civil society in the North yesterday applauded the decision of the opposition political parties to merge, saying that this would further strengthen the nation's democracy and also provide an opportunity for a purposeful president to emerge during the 2015 election in the country.

The leader of the Civil Society Coalition in Northern States, Malam Shehu Sani, who reacted to the merger by the opposition parties, said that "the decision by the major political parties in Nigeria to merge is commendable and a step in the right direction", pointing out that "it will give meaning, strength and teeth to the politics of opposition in Nigeria".

According to him, "the merger is long overdue and a demonstration of principled commitment to democracy, national unity and the eventual establishment of a people's government in Nigeria".

Sani, who is also the President of the Civil Rights Congress (CRC), said that "the All Progressive Congress (APC) comes at the right time when Nigerians are yearning for a potent leadership and change. The APC comes at a time when Nigerians are losing hope and confidence in the ability and capacity of the opposition to confront and change the existing political order and status quo".

"For over a decade, since the restoration of democracy in Nigeria in 1999, our country has been in the grip of a rapacious, venomous, corrosive and annihilating class of political elite from the dominant ruling party. As a nation and as a people we have regressed and sunk to irrelevance, poverty and disunity."

The Lagos State Chapter of the ACN has welcomed the formation of the new party. The party said this was one of the few positive developments that had come to Nigerians.

In a statement in Lagos by Publicity Secretary, Joe Igbokwe, the party warned all the members and supporters of the new party to be wary of the antics of the PDP who have demonstrated clear anxiety over the merger. It urged all to look out for primordial tactics the PDP would employ to sow bad blood among the rank and file of the new party as a way of sustaining the rot it had employed as a tool to despoil a well-endowed country in 14 years of bad leadership.

Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed of Kwara State has said that the merger of the four political parties would not pose any threat to the political dominance of the PDP and that alliances and realignments were bound to happen in politics.

During a monthly live interactive Radio/TV programme, 'Governor Explains' in Ilorin yesterday, Ahmed said the formation was not driven by ideology, but people and positions.

Senator Nosike Ikpo dismissed the alliance as a congregation of strange bed-fellows who would fall apart sooner than later.

Governor Sule Lamido of Jigawa State yesterday faulted the merger. Lamido who spoke at a PDP stakeholders' meeting at its secretariat in Duste described the alliance as a deceit and political propaganda.

The governor stated that none of the political parties would compromise for another and the alliance would only create confusion among them.

The speculated presidential ambition of Lamido is inching towards becoming a reality going by the fact that it was the center point of the stakeholders' meeting convened by the party at the PDP secretariat in Dutse yesterday.

Though the governor is yet to declare his ambition, speaker after speaker stressed the issue as if it were the main agenda of the meeting.

source: http://odili.net/news/source/2013/feb/8/15.html