CPC-ACN merger talks run into problems

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Published on Sunday, 12 August 2012 01:59

Written by Elombah.com

Indications have emerged that the planned merger between the Action Congress of Nigeria(ACN) and the Congress for Progressive Change(CPC) led by former Lagos state governor, Bola Tinubu and General Muhammadu Buhari respectively have run into problems following the  failure of the negotiators on both sides to agree on how

to share the spoils of office.

Elombah.com was made to understand that at one of the meetings of the leaders of the CPC, it was disclosed by Alhaji Buba Galadimma and Prince Tony Momoh, National Secretary and National Chairman, respectively, that before the conclusion of merger between the two parties, it is necessary and important that grey areas on the issue are clearly defined and addressed.

Such areas as; who would produce the President, the Vice President, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), the Chief of Staff to the President, the sharing of Ministerial portfolios, amongst others are yet to be defined and elombah.com was told the above has made the leaders of CPC hesitate to append their signature to the prepared MoU on the planned political merger.

However, sources at recent meetings of the two parties held in Abuja confirmed that while the two parties have agreed to hold pre-merger conventions in the next two months, the Memorandum of Understading (MoU) of the planned merger cannot be signed because of what leaders of the CPC described as the need to enter into the alliance with eyes wide open.

The crew of the CPC in the merger talks led by the party’s General Secretary, Engineer Buba Galadimma, was said to have insisted on the need to avoid going into an alliance with the ACN blindly.

It was also confirmed that the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), which is believed to be favourably disposed to the merger is also in dilemma following reservations expressed by some of its chieftains about Buhari’s role in the new party.

Some powerful politicians in the All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, are not going along with the multi-party merger plan. This, according to our source, is “in spite of the fact that the National Chairman of the ANPP, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, is favourably disposed to going along with a multi-party merger”.

However despite perceived divisions over the merger issue where some leaders of the party are voicing concerns over the workability of the arrangement, members of the ACN and CPC had agreed in principle to adopt either the name Action Congress for Progressive Change (ACPC) or  Action Congress Alliance (ACA) when the merger is actualised.

The parties were also said to have agreed to work on the possibility of holding national conventions in the next two months to actualise this.

Leaders of the two parties plan to go before the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, with a view to relinquishing their earlier Certificates of Registration, preparatory to the endorsement of a new name by the electoral body, so as to ensure the issuance of a unified merger certificate and forestall the emergence of a faction using the original name.

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