By Chidiebere Onyemaizu
The Source has been informed that the full impact of the hemorrhage in the All Progressives Congress, APC will be felt next week when the party’s 40 senators, 110 House of Reps members, three sitting governors, two former governors and a plethora of members of Houses of Assembly in states under the control of the APC, pleading factionalization in the party, formally announce their exit from the APC. Many of them, it was gathered, will be declaring their allegiance and membership of Reformed All Progressives Congress, R-APC. While others are pitching their tents with the African Democratic Congress, ADC and Social Democratic Party, SDP respectively.
As was exclusively reported by The Source few weeks ago, the splinter APC group did not adopt the name, New APC (nAPC) so as not to be seen to be copying the nPDP, renegade members of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP who sided with the then embryonic APC and eventually joined forces with it in the run up to the 2015 general election to defeat the PDP. Incidentally, the new APC faction is populated hugely by the nPDP bloc in the party.
This magazine had reported that the emerging APC faction would announce itself the authentic APC and pronounce the party dead.That was exactly what Buba Galadima, National Chairman of R-APC did on Wednesday in Abuja while announcing the birth of his group.
Galadima who is a political associate of President Muhammadu Buhari accused the President and APC of running “a rudderless, inept and incompetent government that has failed to deliver good governance to Nigerian people but instead imposed dictatorship, impunity, abuse of power, complete abdication of constitutional and statutory responsibilities, infidelity to the rule of law and constitutionalism”
Senate President, Bukola Saraki will be leading the pack of the 40 Senators exiting from the APC while House of Reps Speaker, Yakubu Dogara will be performing the same task in the House.The defecting APC governors have Sokoto state governor, Aminu Tambuwal as arrowhead.As at last night, Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue state, according to insiders, was still weighing the option and implications of exiting the APC at the same time as other members of the nPDP . It was learnt that for security reasons, the governor has been advised to defer his movement out of APC for two months.
Impeccable sources to this magazine that R-APC will not be transforming into a brand new party but has instead, with the SDP, labour Party, ADC and many other parties reached an agreement with the PDP to rebrand with new name, logo and motto acceptable to them for seamless fusion to form a mega party.The implication of this, according PDP sources, is that the party will have to make enormours sacrifices. “ There is an increasing possibility that Uche Secondus, current PDP national Chairman, will give way for a South west National Chairman of a rebranded PDP. “This is one of the painful prices the PDP as presently constituted will pay to build confidence and trust in the emerging mega party”, the source said.
Meanwhile, there are feelers that a section of the Northern political establishment is mounting pressure on President Buhari to consider two options: Immediate resignation from office or withdrawal from the 2019 presidential race in order to salvage what remains of his image.They are worried that Buhari’s defeat in the election will finally batter his already sagging image and leave him with a lurid legacy.
They are of the opinion that the president will be considered a statesman at this point if he willingly steps down or withdraw from the presidential race and crown a successor who will protect his interest and at the same time ensure that his good policies and legacies are not dismantled.
