by Salihu Tanko Yakasai

As much as I would like to put the blame on PDP, I believe Tinubu, Buhari and the rest of the leaders of APC are the ones to be blamed.

With great hype, enthusiasm and high expectations, the entire country welcomed the news of a new mega party, All Progressives Congress APC few weeks ago. Which was born as a result of the opposition parties desire, to present a formidable and united platform that will oust the ruling People’s Democratic party, PDP from power.

Though this isn’t the first time such a thing was initiated, from 1999 to date, several attempts have been made to bring the opposition into some sort of one roof, to provide an alternative to the PDP, but this is the 1st time such a thing is becoming a reality, as all necessary machineries have been put in place, for the actualization of this dream. For the 1st time in this democratic dispensation, we will have 2 major political parties for the electorates to choose from.

Of course this is a huge threat to PDP and naturally it didn’t go down well with the party. From their jittery reactions one can comfortably see how uneasy the formation of the new party, APC has made them. Within 24 hours of the breaking news of APC, about 7 major players issued a statement of some sort down playing the newly formed mega party, from Bamanga to Sule Lamido all of them said PDP isn’t bothered a bit by the new party, and that they’ll still “win” elections come 2015. But obviously that isn’t the case. Couple of weeks afterwards, not one, not two but three other new parties with the acronym “APC” were reportedly seeking registration with INEC. Of course it isn’t top secret that PDP has something to do with this, to stall the registration of the original APC.

As much as I would like to put the blame on PDP, I believe Tinubu, Buhari and the rest of the leaders of APC are the ones to be blamed. You cannot honesty expect PDP to sit down, fold their arms and watch as a serious, possible and potential threat to their firm grip on power, is being hatched. In formation of a new party, name, logo and flag should be the last thing that should be made known public, even this should be done after meeting all the necessary requirements as stipulated by INEC’s guidelines for registration of a new party, and its formal submission to the body for registration. But what the leaders of APC did, was to jump the gun, which gave PDP a window of opportunity to burst APC’s bubble.

Though this means nothing, and won’t stop the opposition from forming a new alliance, in whatever name or manner, what it did was to kill the huge momentum APC had going for it. I remember so many people all over social networking sites changing their DPs, Avis and profile pictures to that of the new party, it became people’s screen savers on their phones and within a very short period of time, the new logo is all over the country. Another huge and daring activity which the APC did was the visit to Maiduguri by their governors. This was so good that the president had to muscle the courage to copy them and head to Maiduguri too for the 1st time in his presidency. But now this momentum has died down, at least until APC springs out something again that will revive it. It’ll be good if they’ll articulate their plans well and stop given room for PDP to put obstacles in their progress.

We’ve been yearning for an alternative, and we seem to have found it in APC. The importance of standing out can not be over emphasised. We must do all we can to keep the passion burning till we achieve our objective of saving our country from the ruins of PDP and their foot soldiers. We must ensure that we do not allow them to burst our bubble.

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Tanko Yakasai is a proud husband and father of two. He is a broadcaster with Freedom Radio, Kano. Yakasai believes in the unity and development of Nigeria, which paved his way into community activities through NGOs in transforming our society for the better. He is a registered member of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC).

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija