The political atmosphere is filled with talk about the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and the All Nigeria People's Party (ANPP) planning a mega party ahead of the 2015 polls. Positive as this may seem, one is tempted to ask a few questions about this political union between three sets of couples with three different ideologies.
First of all, all the three parties involved have a more regional outlook, and in a national scope, are weak in very many areas. ACN is a western party, ANPP is more of a 'northern party', while the CPC is a party many people see as an islamist/fundamentalist party. So, on what basis are they merging? Just to wrestle party from the PDP and share amongst themselves? If that be the case, he country is as good as doomed
In the new political structure, who will be the party leader? Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who happens to be ACN leader will by no means step down- nor step aside- for Muhammad Buhari, who is the CPC leader. I am not even talking about what role the ANPP leadership will carry- because for now, they don't seem to have one. Attahiru Bafarawa, hasn't gotten a full grip of the party yet.
What will be the ideology of this new marriage? The three parties are filled with politicians who 'lost out of power' in other parties and are seeking a return to office. If these men showed a lot of credibility while in office, the case would have been a different thing. But when you have thieves who were booted out of office by fellow thieves now planning on how to get back to office to loot, it speaks much.
It is not that I don't believe in mergers and acquisitions (let me borrow small grammar from the banking world), but I believe we still need the multiparty style of democracy. What opposition political parties should be doing is creating awareness and giving their parties a more national outlook. Thanks to advancements in technology today, it is not difficult to know how our leaders are faring in the different areas where they govern.
The main issue with the PDP, apart from corruption (which is a problem with the average Nigerian), is the fact that it is a political arrangement of strange bedfellows. They have no basic ideology and there is no common drive the party stands nor fights for. This is what we don't want to see in an opposition party- but sadly, it is what we are looking at, given the parties involved in this merger
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