Barring any other permutation, last Tuesday’s merger between the breakaway faction of the Peoples Democratic (PDP) known as new PDP (nPDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) has made the 2015 general election a battle of two equals – APC and PDP. With this balance of power, it is difficult for now to say which direction the 2015 pendulum will swing. But the nPDP, which on August 31, 2013 pulled out of the hitherto surest winning party, has asked President Goodluck Jonathan to start writing his hand-over notes ahead of the 2015 general elections. “The simple meaning of this is that APC is now the majority party in the country while PDP has become a minority party. In the circumstance, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan must now start writing his hand-over notes because his ambition to manoeuvre the party structure to get a third term in office in 2015 has suddenly collapsed,” said Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, spokesperson for nPDP. Survival of the fittest For law professor at the University of Lagos, Akin Oyebode, the defecting nPDP members have pushed President Jonathan into the river and ran away with his clothes. He said: “We are witnessing an evolving scenario that will ultimately lead to two broad political parties. It will leave the electorate with a definitive choice. Hitherto, we had a juggernaut that boasted it will rule, first for 100 years, later they revised it to 60 years. But we are not sure they will be there for 20 years.” Oyebode said with the latest political map of Nigeria, the PDP has every reason to lose sleep. “By my latest calculation, you have 17 governors on each side. It is a very fascinating scenario. The PDP is bothered because they might be out in the cold if they are not careful. I think they must take the proper calculations to cut at their losses and ensure that they continue to be relevant,” he said. “The alchemy that has come up before our very eyes is such that might confuse political observers because we don’t have clear-cut ideological distinctions between the parties. You have six on one side and half a dozen on the other. But like Chief Obafemi Awolowo once said way back in 1980, we are going to have a dialectical problem – realignment, readjustment which appears to be like something we are witnessing. You see, the political parties represent the same beer. It is only the labels on the bottle that are different. But I think both sides will work out some arrangement, a modus vivendi that will really enable Nigerians to really pick and judge.” “To a large extent, some of the G7 governors have been tactically pushed out of the PDP, and for them to be politically relevant, the best thing to do is to join a major opposition party.” Two days ago, it was gathered that APC is presently the Majority Group at lower house, leaving PDP as the minority group after a current-flow of defector from PDP to APC. Surely Gej is a hot soup. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THESE TWO POWERFUL NIGERIAN POLITICAL PARTIES AND ITS EFFECT(S) TO GEJs 2015 AMBITION?
Posted on: Sat, 01 Feb 2014 07:52:48 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015