Remarks by General Muhammadu Buhari At the Inauguration of the CPC Merger Committee
At the CPC National Secretariat, Utako
On Wednesday, January 16, 2013
I would like to welcome all of you to this very important gathering,
and would like to begin by apologising to all of you for the short
notice given. And for people like Owelle Oscar Udoji and others like him
who have virtually been detained here and who have had to cancel
engagements overseas in order to be with us here for this event, the
apology is double.
After my full and sincere apology, I would
like to congratulate you on your appointment. You are all selected and
appointed to serve on this important Committee because of the trust and
confidence the leadership of this party has in your ability, competence
and integrity to work with sincerity in the best interest of not only
the CPC but the people of Nigeria who have always voted – and will again
vote - for change.
The issue before you now and as go into
negotiations is fundamentally one - that you will negotiate the best
deal for Nigeria. It is essentially a matter of give-and-take: there is
nothing sacrosanct about any of the issues you will be called to thrash
out; of course, there is a bottom line the outlines of which you have
been given in the Committee's Terms of Reference. Please study these and
let these be your guide as you sit to negotiate. Your task is national.
Petty person interest should not stand in the way of a great
opportunity to build and run a better Nigeria, which will happen once
CPC and ACN come together.
But remember: we are not going into
battle; we are going into a friendly game with our brothers who desire
for this nation what we desire for it. You must remember to negotiate
with respect, understanding and decorum as befits people who are ready
and genuinely desirous of merging into one tomorrow. As we sadly know,
the nation is once again at a crossroads, stumbling from one disaster to
another, simply because its leaders lack unity of purpose; and, even if
they sometimes look like coming together this has never been marshalled
into a coherent, irresistible force by the opposition. But the
opposition itself has not been able to get its act together because it is not
united. In Nigeria today therefore, unity - unity of the people, unity
of political parties, and unity of opposition - is no longer an option.
It has become a national imperative.
And thankfully, everyone
is finally coming round to accept the necessity for it. Right now, so
strong is the belief in unity as seen in the merger of our two parties
that the sentiments expressed on both sides sound as if the two parties
may merge on their own even before their representatives reached the
roundtable. The sentiment today is a merger between the ACN and CPC, not
an alliance or an electoral understanding or anything of the sort. What
Nigerians want, is merger and that is what you are going to negotiate
and bring home to them.
And luckily, you already have something
on the ground to work on, because much ground towards unity has already
been covered in previous abortive attempts. For instance, there is
already in existence an unexecuted understanding between CPC and the ACN
for the creation of a new party with a brand new logo and a new flag
already designed and all other paraphernalia of a political party put in
place.
All these should be dusted up and built upon so that we
do not waste valuable time revisiting ground that has already been
covered. Your Committee should go back and pick up matters from there.
At the risk of sounding overtly too optimistic , I may suggest that you
should be able to finish your work in six weeks, at the end of which the
CPC and ACN should be in a position to sign a declaration of intent to
fuse their into two parties into one.
After signing the
declaration, it should not take more than another six weeks for the
parties to pursue the matter within their own constitutional context to
ensure that the issue is legitimated through the proper procedures and
processes of its own organs. And from there will be a matter of crossing
the t's and dotting the i's. It is not impossible that the new party is
presented to the people of Nigeria by the middle of this year.
And when it is, the new party should root for a proper federation as
the basis of the union and for governance of the country, and should
actively support the restructuring of the country. In part, this is
because the 36-state structure of the country is simply not working; and
it must therefore be rationalised. The party should root for democracy,
rule of law and the entrenchment of democratic culture in the country;
and the foundation of the new party should be anchored on the
recognition and acceptance that our cultural and religious differences
are a blessing and a source of strength, and should not be a cause for
disunity.
The new party should as a matter of top most priority
begin to tackle and plan for the creation of a new security
architecture for the country and possibly for the entire sub-region, a
development that may involve the recreation of local security networks
and the restoration of traditional intelligence gathering techniques to
shore up a police force that has obviously failed. And with regard to
public service, the new party should press for the adoption of a new
work ethnic that will bring lost glory and greater accountability back
to governance.
As you are all, no doubt aware, our goal is to
effect merger between two parties - a merger that will win this election
and create a new, stronger, more truly democratic, proper, Federal
Republic and change the attitude and thinking of our people. And with
this, ladies and gentle men, the CPC Merger Committee is inaugurated in
the name of God, and with our prayers to Him to grant us success in the
talks we are about to commence, and to give us even greater success in
carrying out the plans we have for the people of this country.
Finally, let me once again thank you most heartily and most sincerely
for all your loyalty and unflinching support and commitment to our
cause. Sometimes words fail me as to how to express my feelings with
regard to the sacrifices you are making. This time I believe our anguish
is at an end; because victory is in sight. I hope God will strengthen
you for the last lap of the journey. Even though I believe we shall all
have our reward in heaven, this time we shall strive to enjoy it right
here on earth. But, of course, we do not measure our reward in material
terms; our reward is in witnessing the success of our enterprise.
We do not have money, and we are shunned by most of those who do. We do
not have a police force, and our supporters are the victims of those
who do. We do not have the government on our side, and we are always
short changed by it as it misapplies the Federal Might not to conduct
credible elections, but to rig us out of our mandate. The one we have on
our side is God and the people - and these are sufficient for us. And
we shall not swerve from the cause we have chosen: our cause is the
cause of the nation ; and to do good to our long-suffering people so
that our country becomes great. So help us God.
Thank you very much for your attention.
General Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR
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