WE’LL SACRIFICE FOR MERGER – BUHARI, TINUBU

Committee to be inaugurated today

Hope of the planned merger among the opposition parties ahead of the 2015 general election was yesterday heightened with both General Muhammdu Buhari and Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu expressing their readiness to make necessary sacrifice to ensure its working.

While Buhari is the national leader of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Tinubu leads the  Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).

Their assurances came as indication emerged that the joint committee to discuss the process and modalities of the talk will be inaugurated in Abuja today.

The duos spoke in Abuja at the public presentation of “2015 Manifesto of Nigerian Opposition Politics,” a book  authored by  a policy economist, Salihu Mohammed Lukman.

Represented by a former deputy governor of Bauchi state, Alhaji Garba Ghali, the former head of state said he was already to support the process, saying Nigeria had come to a point in its history when the opposition cannot afford to watch, “hence the need for us all to make the necessary sacrifice to allow the working of this merger of like minds work.”

He stressed the need for all major players in the merger process to learn from the pitfalls of the previous exercise(s) that failed.

Speaking in similar vein, Asiwaju Tinubu said the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)-led government had “led the country from bad to worse and from worse now ready to take us further down.

Tinubu who was also represented by the Minority Leader, House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, said it was not just enough to criticise the PDP’s style of administration, “but we must provide an intelligent and attainable alternative which is what the people want.

“We must be ready to tell the people how we plan to turn around the infrastructure and also make their lives better. To this end, for me I am ready to make whatever sacrifice that needs to be done to consummate the merger.

They commended author of the book for his foresight and setting agenda for the nation’s democratic system.

Earlier in his remark,   chairman of the occasion, Chief Audu Ogbeh who traced the history of democracy in Russia, United States of America and other advanced countries, bemoaned the dearth of manifestoes of political parties in the country.

Commending the author’s initiative, Ogbeh said the opportunity was ripe for the country’s opposition to take its proper position in the nation’s history, saying “we either fuss or live it to perish.”

“Let not the ruling party celebrate its victory as the only athlete on the track. Let us have a market of ideas. We should allow this merger to work not because anyone of us wants office but because we want to bring up a new agenda that would impact positively on the lives of our people.”

Source: Blueprint