INEC Has No Reason To Deny APC Registration – Galadima Engineer Buba Galadima is the National Secretary of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), in this encounter with RUTH CHOJI, the Yobe born politician denied having problems with former Head of State and Presidential Candidate of the CPC in the 2011 election, General Muhammadu Buhari. He also revealed that chunk of PDP members are likely to defect to the emerging All Progressives Congress (APC) which he claimed has fulfilled all INEC requirements to be registered as a political party Most Nigerians were surprised that you were not in the forefront for the merger, what happened I was in the real sense of it because we were supposed to have formed the merger committee itself which is supposed to be responsible to the party and then I was one of the three signatories to the submission of the merger document which was picked from each of the merging parties and I can say to that extend we midwife the merger. But I know it is of interest to many people and many have been asking why they didn’t see my name in the protem executive. One cannot be everywhere every time. May be it was a time for me to rest. But some are beginning to insinuate that there might be problems between you and General Buhari; how true are these rumours? Well not to my knowledge, may be the general should be asked, but for me, he has not told me personally that he has a problem with me, neither do I nurse one against him, but if he says so, maybe it is true Some also believe that some of you that formed the CPC have been set aside. Is there anything like that? Politics is dynamic, not only could we be set aside, but one day if you ask us to come and contest or participate in politics, we may not or sometimes or we may not be alive to play politics. This is the evolution of life. CPC to me was a railway bus stop I am going through and I am looking forward to what the future entails for some of us. Supposing INEC refuses to register the APC, what will happen? I don’t believe INEC has any reason not to register the party. Why haven’t they done so since the merger was completed? We just made the submission recently. A lot of people do not understand the issues; there are stages in the process. The first stage is the agreement of the parties to come together to form a merger. Then these parties form committees that have sat down to advise on the constitution, manifestos logo to the party. Once they have done that, and the recommendations are accepted by the various parties on the merger talks, they have to go to their convention and approve the merger of the political parties to form the All Progressive Congress. What remained was the formation of the midwifery committee of the three – three people that I have earlier mentioned. We have packaged all these resolutions and our names and sent to INEC which told us that they will not pronounce whether we have successfully merged or not for one, that we wouldn’t want to finish all the processes together, then call a meeting of the commission and it is the commission that will now sit down and approve the first level and then the level which is the registration of the party; and they now told us to submit our manifesto in thirty-five copies, constitution, thirty-five copies, list of protem committee members, reflecting two third of the states of Nigeria. They wrote to us that they will come and inspect our office to ascertain the officers that we have claimed, members of the protem executive committee and each of the members will now go with an Identity card whether a driving licence, passport or whatsoever but it must be acceptable to INEC and they verify that this is actually the persons. When they gather all this information, they will now write a report which will be forwarded to the INEC for deliberation and then communicate to us that our merge; registration has been successful. Therefore ,you are now free to be called All Progressive Congress. Are these long processes peculiar to all parties or is it just the merging parties? Any merging party; this is the first time this kind of process is taking place in Nigeria, and that is why it is cantankerous in the sense that we have to dialogue and dialogue so that we do not offend the laws of INEC and so that one of us cannot be short chance; so far, we are happy that INEC has followed all this due process of consultations. We are very hopeful; that we have fulfilled all the conditions stipulated. Once this is done, I don’t expect any hurdle whatsoever. How many parties were involved in the merger? We have three parties that were merged, that is the larger parties; we also have splinters of APGA, DPP and the rest and we also have larger splinter of PDP, don’t ask me for names because I won’t tell you, but when the chips are down, the PDP will see the handwriting on the wall. Many Nigerians believe that the new party is likely to disintegrate when it comes to the sharing of positions. How will positions be shared in the APC This is what the PDP has been hoping will happen. They are trying to infiltrate our ranks; to them the protem executive shouldn’t even be formed. First they thought we will quarrel and fight, but it is an issue of give and take. With the good acceptance of this party in the hearts of Nigerians, no sacrifice will be too big to make. You can remember that General Buhari once said that if the merging parties find someone better than himself, he will abide by their decisions and assist that person. Does this means that Buhari is contesting again in 2015 Well he was asked by the press. So if you are a good candidate and you have got the financial muzzles and strength that can propel you to defeat Jonathan, please declare you interest. I will be your campaign manager. It is a common knowledge that political positions are zoned in Nigeria, where is the presidential ticket going to be zoned to in the APC? When we get to that bridge, we will definitely cross it. Some will cross by canoe; some will cross by ship and some on foot. We have not yet reached there, we don’t have a party yet, we are waiting for INEC to register us. You will see the kind of debate and other issues that we will make sure we did not take a false step. ANPP was almost side lined form the merger; what role is it playing now in the new party? It will interest you to know that we have never had any working relationship or agreement with them. But the truth is that our candidate in the 2011 elections was voted by the 99% of the ANPP people. They didn’t vote for their candidate, they voted for the CPC as Jonathan was to the ACN; you know a sizeable number of the ACN members even though they had a candidate, voted by Jonathan What are the chances for the new party knowing that PDP has vowed to rule Nigeria for sixty years? Great chance, the PDP is being abandoned by the people and the country, they are being abandoned by the international community and what is happening in Egypt is a pointer to what can happen in Nigeria. We will never accept impunity in 2015. In 2011 INEC was accused of dancing to the tune of the PDP, what are the chances now that INEC will give Nigeria free, fair and credible elections I am not a soothsayer to know what will happen in 2015, but all I can do is to predict my actions. We will plan, strategise and look at all options; we know the PDP will employ the military and so how can we checkmate the military; the military must not forget their allegiance to the constitution of the nation.
Posted on: Sun, 14 Jul 2013 10:20:05 +0000
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