Ribadu May step down today!!

Nuhu Ribadu, the presidential candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria may step down today, according to sources close to the ACN and the Congress for Progressive Change. Leaders of the two main opposition parties met yesterday to talk about fielding a common candidate against President Goodluck Jonathan in Saturday’s presidential election. The latest round of talks, which began Monday night in Abuja, made little progress, only to flounder again. By 3am on Tuesday morning, when the parties broke up the first meeting, it looked as if an agreement was only a matter of time.

A source close to the meeting said, “There is no doubt that we shall reach a consensus. Nobody is holding any hard line. Even Ribadu has expressed his willingness to step down, but Tinubu still wants to be vice president and Buhari is not as against it as he once was.” However, by yesterday afternoon, things had taken a less amenable turn for the alliance. The problem began over which platform the alliance’s candidate should contest on. While there was no doubt that Muhammadu Buhari would fly the group’s flag, Bola Tinubu reportedly insisted that the former head of state did so under the ACN banner. Mr Buhari, however, allegedly complained that this would confuse his supporters in the north who have been primed to vote for the CPC.

Riding high

The parties had delayed more talks on the alliance until after the parliamentary elections in order to better gauge their mutual support base. The results proved conclusively that the ACN, which swept the west and Edo State, would be invaluable to Mr Buhari if he hoped to win the 25 percent of votes in two-thirds of the 36 states in order to become president. The source said that although Mr. Buhari was fairly certain that he could get the majority vote by winning the northwest — which boasts the largest voting bloc, and some north-central states — he was not so certain that he would get the required spread.

Last Saturday’s election also emboldened the ACN, which was riding high on its victory over PDP in the southwest. The CPC, which had not shown a similar dominance in the north, was, however, sure that its fortune would increase tremendously with Saturday’s election.

“We have never pretended that our joker is the personality of General Buhari himself. And he is the one that most of our supporters are waiting to vote for,” said a source in the CPC.

Past behaviour

However, signs that things had taken a turn for the worse came with the sudden appearance of a document chronicling the history of the talks and how Mr. Buhari’s alleged intransigence had, at several times, halted the alliance.

It is not clear if the timing of the paper was meant to put Mr. Buhari on the defensive and make him reach an agreement quickly, or whether it was a sign of how frustrated the ACN had become with the discussion.

In the document, Bisi Akande, ACN chairman, recalled how Muhammadu Buhari, in 2006, suddenly abandoned the Action Congress “after being in a robust discussion with the party throughout 2005, to contest the 2007 elections on the platform of ANPP.”

Again, the party resumed discussions with Mr Buhari in October 2010 towards the present elections, after the general visited Bisi Akande at his Ogudu, Lagos home to talk about the need to work together. But it also ended in a stalemate. Mr Akande told NEXT yesterday that he didn’t think a merger would work.

“On what basis would we do that when we are the bigger party?” he said in a phone interview. “What will we tell the people? This is a figment of the imagination of some people. The PDP is fuelling such speculation because it is in their interest.”

When contacted about the latest round of talks, a spokesperson for the CPC, Rotimi Fashakin, said, “Talks have never ceased. We shall continue to explore cooperation with other parties as the need arises.”

More muddling

Yesterday, the governorship candidates of the party also met with Mr Akande at the Yar’Adua Centre in Abuja where they each talked about the events that had happened in their states and tabled their demands for more funding.

According to a source at the meeting, many of those present were also against the alliance for their own “selfish reasons.” One of the party’s governorship contestants said, “Some of us felt that Tinubu is pushing this alliance for his own sake. He had not come to our aid all this while and the PDP has been pumping money to their own candidates.”

It is not clear, with the elections barely four days away, how this alliance will work. Although the ACN presidential candidate is reportedly willing to step down, other major players in the talks are not so amenable.

“Any alliance now will cause some major confusion,” said our source.

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