National Chairman of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Chief Bisi Akande has assured that against all odds, the newly formed All Progressive Congress (APC) has come to stay and would assume government in 2015 by defeating the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the general elections. He said it has become obvious that the country needs to be salvaged.
Akande, who spoke as a guest of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) at the party’s national congress on Saturday, described the opposition parties merging into the APC as willing and determined to keep the promise of building a new nation.
The CPC and the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) held their national convention simultaneously on Saturday following an earlier one by the ACN. While CPC held its convention in Abuja, the ANPP held its in Gusau, Zamfara State capital.
“We have embarked on this historic journey, the first of its kind in Nigeria’s political history, because we want to be recorded positively on the side of history,” Akande said in Abuja.
“We are, however, not unaware of the huge challenges we would face in this endeavour, and the series of minefields we are to cross in our common resolve to rescue this country from total collapse. It is against this backdrop that we are gathered here today as we did in Lagos to fulfill one of the requirements under the law to actualise our coming together under a single political platform — All Progressives Congress, APC.
“Our undying quest to refocus and, possibly, re-fix this massively endowed but hugely debased country has made us to set aside our individual interests for a larger national one. For every PDP’s year of the locust, we are offering, in exchange, a new regime of prosperity, fiscal discipline, security and a more emancipated society.”
He lamented that for about a decade and a half since PDP came to power, the development of the country has been arrested and almost stalled, adding that the ruling party had only succeeded in boosting hopelessness, despondency and inertia among the citizenry.
“Since the coming of this government in 2011, all we have seen are tales of woes, gnashing of teeth and the crimsoning of our street with the blood of fellow citizens. Perhaps, aside the civil war period, the unity of this country has never been as threatened as it is presently,” he said.
“All of our national fault lines are growing deeper and the continuous existence of the country as indivisible entity is increasingly in doubt.
“In just the same way as the entire democratic space has been fouled with fraud, leadership failure and high level insecurity, our social and economic management has been constricted through unbridled corruption and widespread poverty in the face of enhanced revenue earnings to such an extent that the strata of the Nigerian society too has been engulfed in mutual suspicion and fractured with national disunity.”
Akande admitted that the opposition does not have the magic wand but pledged that it is poised to signpost the possibility of a new country and better leadership.
“What we are now offering is our commitment to changing the past ways that have set us back through progressive thinking, sound and people-oriented policies, and dedicated leadership. Through sacrifice and renewed patriotic zeal, we hope to unseat the current incompetent and corrupt leadership.”
He appealed to Nigerians to reject the kind of presidential election results foisted upon the country from 1999 to 2011 and the continued polarization and division of Nigeria between the North and the South and between the Christians and the Muslims, which has been escalating sectarian violence, intensifying bloodletting, and destroying properties as a result of the flawed elections.
He urged Nigerians to rally in support for the one-man-one-vote mantra based on fraud-free and accurate voters’ register, saying that biometric voting system has become a clear option for free and fair elections in the other emerging democracies like Ghana.
“Nigeria must move in that inevitable direction,” he said. “I am convinced that this bold and historical step by ACN, ANPP and CPC to merge into one formidable electoral machine against PDP would serve as a major antidote against the seeming total disintegration of Nigeria.”
