CNM’S Lifeline To ADC
nomenclature, the national chairman of Social Democratic Party (SDP), Chief Olu Falae, paid a visit on Chief Obasanjo at Abeokuta.
Falae, who addressed journalists after the meeting explained that he was in Abeokuta ‘to exchange views with Baba Obasanjo on the affairs of Nigeria.” The former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) under former military President Ibrahim Babangida, said many right thinking Nigerians see “the need for all to work together to ensure a good, beneficial, peaceful and progressive change in Nigeria.”
However, despite Falae’s denial that the meeting with Obasanjo was not connected to his (Falae’s) rumoured presidential ambition, words started making the rounds that CNM was about adopting SDP as the third force.
Sources disclosed that while efforts were being made to adopt SDP as the choice party for the third force onslaught on the polity in 2019, the issue of whom flies the party’s Presidential flag was being discussed by the leaders.
While Babangida was said to have indicated interest in the incumbent Sokoto State governor, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, Chief Obasanjo preferred Kwankwaso. “It was this issue of Presidential ticket that compelled the PDP national chairman, Prince Uche Secondus to visit Babangida alongside members of his National Working Committee (NWC),” the source said.
As the scheming for the likely presidential aspirant to support continued to elicit debates and discussion within SDP, Obasanjo and elements of CNM were said to have discovered the leaning of major party stalwarts towards the former Vice President, Atiku.
Sources disclosed that it was at the demonstration of inflexible aversion of SDP leaders to Kwankwaso that CNM deepened its search for a platform to adopt comprehensively.
Lifeline For ADC
HILE CNM continued its frantic search for a platform, it was discovered that the African Democratic Congress (ADC) was willing to abide by its terms, which included total surrender of the party structure.
Contrary to popular perception, ADC is not a recent creation as the party had been in existence since 2007. Chairman of ADC, Raphs Okey Nwosu, was a foundation member of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), who quit the party after Mr. Peter Obi was adopted as APGA governorship candidate in 2002.
At the build up to the 2007 election, Nwosu founded ADC, on which platform he contested the Anambra State governorship election on four occasions. The party continued to struggle, returning barren results at subsequent polls.
WObasanjo’s CNM came as a lifeline against the backdrop of speculations that parties that fail to net one electoral victory during the 2019 would be delisted. Furthermore the delicate nature of ADC conforms to what CNM desired, especially “making a mark in the 2018 and 2019 polls.” From the text of the press conference addressed by the co-convener of CNM, Prince Olagunsoye Onyilola, the hurry to adopt ADC was facilitated by the inherent structural weakness of the party. For instance, adopting SDP would not have been seamless and easy as ADC acquisition proved. In fact, a source privy to the adoption confided in The Guardian that while any other well established party would have had recourse to NEC meet-