Former Lagos State governor and Action Congress Party leader, Bola Tinubu, opens up about the failed pre-election alliance talks with the CPC. Exerpt:
Why, in your own opinion, did alliance talks with the Congress for Progressive Change collapse?
The story is not different from what the national chairman has said. It is very unfortunate that the two serious national parties could not solve the problem earlier than now. We have been at it for quite some time now. You all are aware of the National Democratic Movement, which Atiku was a member before he moved back to the PDP. The movement was left with Bafarawa, Buhari, and us. From that moment on, it would have been a good opportunity to form an alliance. It is not about individuals, it is about the need to form a strong structure. At that time, there was no CPC. What we had was TBO (The Buhari Organisation).
Suddenly, CPC was registered. To me, at that state, instead of a merger to form a unified platform, they started talking about alliance. Alliance in a presidential system has never worked. You need to form a common platform, with a common manifesto, to be able to work together and be able to educate the people on the difference between the common platform and the constituting parties. When the merger plan did not work, they dragged us back.
Though, I won't lay blame but Buhari, as a leader who is highly experienced, and has been a statesman and contested elections twice and has complained of rigging and irregularities in court for a long time challenging the process, he should have seen that it is not wise to bring CPC in at the time we were rooting for a merger. But we still respected him and wanted to continue with the merger plan, but he said he wanted an alliance.
So the merger was suspended?
However, if you want alliance, instead of a merger, you must be ready to negotiate and give and take and make sacrifices. But it is unfortunate that we are so self-centred and selfish to the extent that it beclouds our patriotic sense. They do not want to give, so they can take. We suspended the alliance talk till after the National Assembly election, the result of which showed that ACN has better strength and better spread than CPC. So we should be the leader in the alliance. But they want to keep the presidential candidate as well as the running mate, in an alliance where we should be the leading pack.
Now the alliance is not strong enough to produce the senate president, neither can it produce the House of Representatives speaker, so what are we going to get in return? I am ready to sacrifice my two legs to be amputated but you are not even ready to sacrifice your index finger. They were offering us cabinet positions which you can change your mind tomorrow and sack at will. But we were still ready to go along with the plan, in the interest of the nation only for us to discover that while we were negotiating the alliance, they are also speaking with the Save Nigeria Group, to which they have conceded the vice presidential slot. We accepted him but asked him to surrender the vice presidential slot. If we don't have that, our own platform, which we have laboured so hard to build, will be in danger.
So we proposed a merger which will be implemented after the election. We could not afford to jettison our symbol because it is the symbol of economy, especially for the poor. But we were ready for a joint logo that will show the broom on one side and Buhari's pen on another side as a new logo for the future. The negotiation went to that extent. Yet, they refused to commit to that plan. At that point, it became clear that they are only after using us to win election, without having any regard for our platform. We decided at that point to cancel all suggestions and look at thing holistically.
Would you say the formation of CPC was a fifth columnist act to stop the merger?
Let us finish the bleeding before the careful analysis and post-mortem of the failure of the alliance will be done. But a leader must be able to identify great opportunity and sit on it, hold on tight. No one can mislead me easily because I examine facts, figure, and factors before taking decision. So irrespective of how many columnists, why will a leader see that opportunity and not seize it? I think is a question of the quality of leadership ability.
The allegation about you meeting with President Jonathan...
It was not true. He sought for my audience in Lagos not in Abuja. I don't need a presidential jet. I have been in presidential jet three times since the return of democracy, twice with Abubakar Atiku en route Umrah and my late friend, Yar'Adua was with us on one of the two occasions. The third time was with President Yar'Adua.
We met at Kaduna and we flew together to Abuja. If they are sure I flew in presidential jet to see Jonathan, let them produce the manifest of that flight. It is amazing that blackmail thrives more than the truth in this country. There are so many misleading stories that could easily be verified but surprisingly end up being believed.
What is your view on voter turnout?
This election has its own form, and next week's governorship will have its own form too. That is when this low turnout will turn to massive turnout. All politics is local. We are all going to massively vote for Fashola.
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