2015: Opposition will provide leadership to salvage Nigeria, says Tinubu

by: Ernest Nwokolo

Former Lagos State Governor, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, has said the amalgamation of the opposition parties – Action Congress of Nigeria(ACN), Congress for Progressive Change(CPC) and the All Nigeria Peoples Party(ANPP), will provide the “rare leadership” required to put Nigeria back on the path of sustainable growth and development.
Tinubu said though nearly everybody can steer a ship or run the affairs of a country, only a person of extra – ordinary leadership qualities can rescue the drifting ship of a state and the future of her people.
The National leader of the ACN, who spoke with reporters in Abeokuta, Ogun State capital, after the commissioning of the first fly – over (Lalubu – Ibara – Totoro bridge) built by Governor Ibikunle Amosun’s administration, said the merger talks of the opposition parties are going on “fine,” stressing that the only way to upstage the Peoples Democratic Party in 2015 is for the oppositions to team up .
According to him, the opposition owes it a duty to become “more pro – active” to wrest governance from the PDP controlled government and provide the development agenda for Nigeria.
Tinubu who noted that the ACN controlled states are delivering on the dividends of democracy because of the quality leadership of its governors said if the Independent National Election Commission(INEC) could be transparent in the conduct of elections like what obtained in the last polls in Ghana, the country and the citizens would be the better for it.
The Are – Ago of Egbaland, expressed the confidence that the merger would work this time to provide leadership and hope to the nation.
Tinubu said: ” If the youth don’t have a future in this country and with the roller coaster Poverty Development Party(PDP), we have to change that and have to be pro active to able to change Nigeria for the better. And the only way we could that is come together under one platform to ignore seperationists and become unifiers, in order to grab the ship of the country that is adrift ,and chart a new course.
” Nearly everybody, and we have seen it demonstrated ,can steer a ship or say they are in-charge of a country but it takes rare leadership, extra – ordinary leadership to chart the course of national development when the issue of the state and the ship of a nation is adrift.”
He said ACN won elections in some states outside the SouthWest particularly in Benue and Taraba during the last exercise but added that the party was rigged out.
“The merger thing is coming on fine.In every political environment you have hills and valleys. There are sincere people, our commitment to merger is not for us, it is for the country. It is not for today only, it is for tomorrow and the future of our youth, the liberty and freedom of the journalism profession.
“We are in the SouthWest, our political opponents would want us hemmed in, they want us restricted to South West but we won the election in Taraba State, I know that but they rigged us out; we won in Benue, I know that but they rigged us out; even in Kwara, the victory there was questionable and I’m bold to say that, we require transparent power.”
He lauded Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State , for what he called his phenomenal achievements and his victory at the election petitions tribunal.
“The challenge is that of INEC.You have seen what has happened in Ghana:transparent, validated, verifiable election results that occurred there. If this giant has elephantiasis, we will treat it,”he said.
TheNation