Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau
Onyebuchi Ezigbo
The Presidential Candidate of the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP)
during the 2011 presidential elections, Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau, has
been chosen to lead the party’s opposition party merger talks
While accepting the task, Shekarau asked Nigerian electorate not to
cast their votes again for the People’s Democratic Party in the 2015
general elections.
The former Governor said dumping PDP has become necessary because the
party has failed more than three consecutive times to provide good
governance to the people.
“The PDP has not solved any serious national problem in its thirteen
years of ruling the country. PDP has failed the country and as such
should quit the stage,” he said.
While inaugurating the merger committee, the ANPP National Chairman,
Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu charged the committee to enter into merger/alliance
discussions with other opposition political parties as well as
organisations and civil society groups as a way of preparing for better
performance in future elections. He said the committee has six months
deadline to submit a final report to the national leadership of the
party.
Onu said the last past thirteen years of PDP-led administration has been marked by impunity in governance and abuse of office.
He said corruption and indolence have reached very disturbing levels as
pension funds, subsidy payments have been grossly abused.
“For the past thirteen years, the price of crude oil in the
international market has remained high. For a very long period, one
barrel of crude oil sold for more than a hundred dollars. We cannot
easily forget that about fourteen years ago, by 1998/1999, when Gen.
Abdulsalami Abubakar served as military Head of State, one barrel of
crude oil fetched as low as nine dollars and even less,” he added.
“Our national treasury has received, in the past thirteen years, more
money than it had in the forty years before then. Yet the level of
poverty has continued to increase and worsen. By government statistics,
two out of every three Nigerians are poor. What a shame, “ he said.
Onu lamented that the high level of insecurity in the country is such
that no one anymore even mentions armed robbery attacks either on our
roads or in our homes.
He charged the Shekarau-led committee take a general look at the party
and recommend ways to make it more attractive, particularly on ways to
getting party leaders to show more interest in the affairs of the party,
including how to best fund it’s operations.
He also mandated the committee to identify party leaders and key
political actors across the country with a view to getting them to join
us.
ThisDay
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