Recall that Atiku, alongside Nasir El-Rufai, the immediate past governor of Kaduna, recently announced the birth of a new coalition that will sack President Tinubu through the 2023 election, and all direction pointed to the SDP as El-Rufai joined the party after dumping the APC.
Titilope Anifowoshe, a political analyst, in an exclusive interview with TimesNow.com.ng, explained that a coalition should be beyond defeating the president, they must have vision and ideology. She said:
The SDP, which is the new bride in the opposition train, has boasted about its readiness to rescue Nigeria’s democracy in the 2027 election. The SDP also bragged about reversing the deepening socio-economic challenges of Nigeria as it prepared to come out strong in the 2027 general election.
The party, in a statement it reacted to the merger talk, stating that “no merger, a clean slate” stance and distanced itself from any political permutation that would compromise the integrity of its ideology. The SDP said its door is open to any Nigerian, particularly youths and professionals who are willing to contribute to the country.
On the other hand, Buba Galadima, a chieftain of the NNPP, alleged that the celebrated defection of El-Rufai from the APC to the SDP was to be a placeholder for Atiku, should the PDP governors deny him the ticket of the party.
Galadima made the allegation in a television interview, adding that the former governor had previously attacked the former vice president and wondered why Atiku agreed to work with El-Rufai.
The NNPP chieftain further claimed that El-Rufai did not have any political relevance and that the SDP coalition was merely a noisemaking. He added that the former governor did not win any local government in 2020 and when he was a sitting governor in the 2023 election, the PDP won all the three senatorial districts and 12 of the 14 House of Representatives seats in the state.
Galadima noted that the APC won just one House of Representatives seat, while the Labour Party won the last seat when El-Rufai was a sitting governor. The NNPP leader wondered what El-Rufai can do now that he is out of power and even fighting his successor from outside.
According to Galadima, the NNPP remained a veritable alternative party and expressed the confidence that the party would come out with a larger vehicle in the 2027 presidential election. On the other hand, neither Atiku nor El-Rufai, has responded to Galadima’s claims.
This happened as the main opposition PDP continued to spiral into a deeper political crisis with growing disaffection between the governor and top stakeholders of the party. This has continued to cast uncertainty on the PDP’s future, barely two years after it lost the presidential election.
According to The Guardian, there are also indications that some governors elected under the PDP have distanced themselves from the crisis rocking the party’s national leadership, which raised some doubts about the possibility of the party’s planned National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting scheduled for May.
Credible sources within the party have also confirmed that no less than five governors are working on alliances with either the APC or the new coalition that was expected to merge ahead of the 2027 general election. This came as a result of the unrelenting PDP internal crisis, which was linked to Nyesom Wike, the minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and his allies within the National Working Committee (NWC) of the PDP.
TimesNow.com.ng earlier reported that former President Muhammadu Buhari has reportedly expressed indifference about his loyalists dumping the President Bola Tinubu-led APC.
Reports had it that the APC governors who visited the former president were seeking his intervention to stop the CPC bloc from dumping the party.
It was also stated that the CPC remained the largest bloc, with ruling party governors fearing that their defection would doom the APC.
Source: TimesNow.com.ng
