APC will push out PDP in 2015 – Buhari

A veteran presidential candidate and a major stakeholder in the newly-registered All Progressives Congress, Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) on Tuesday said the new party was determined to push out the ruling Peoples Democratic Party in 2015.

“The APC is focus-driven to push the PDP out of power by 2015,” Buhari told members of the Democratic Emancipation Movement who paid him a courtesy visit in Kaduna.

But the PDP said on Tuesday that Buhari, who ruled Nigeria as a military Head of State between 1983 and 1985, was day-dreaming.

“There is no way the APC can win the election in 2015. He (Buhari) is day-dreaming,” Acting National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Mr. Tony Okeke, said in reaction to the ex-Head of State boast.

Buhari contested the presidential election on the platforms of two political parties in 2003, 2007 and 2011 and lost to the PDP candidates in all.

In the 2003 and 2007 elections, he was the candidate of the All Nigeria Progressive Party against PDP’s Olusegun Obasanjo and Umaru Yar’Adua respectively. In 2011, he contested against incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan on the platform of the Congress for Progressive Change, now a third of the new APC.

The APC is the product of a merger of CPC, ANPP and the Action Congress of Nigeria.

But Buhari said whether he would run in the 2015 poll or not would depend on whether the APC wanted him or not.

“My decision will be tied to the constitution of the APC. If the party chooses me as its candidate, I will contest. If the members do not consider me, I will not contest but I will still support the party. My decision to run for 2015 will solely be that of the party,” Buhari said.

He said that the APC would give Nigerians a new lease of life and hope that would make the country rank top in the comity of nations.

He also lauded the nation’s electoral umpire the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for mustering the courage to register APC.

The former Head of State noted that he had thought of a merger of political forces to wrest power from the PDP in 2007.

He admitted that in the past, the opposition parties in the country had made mistakes because “we made ourselves vulnerable.”

He added that for the country to survive, the main opposition parties had to come together to wrest power from the PDP.

Buhari said, “I thought about this merger in 2007. This is because I found out that none of the opposition parties can challenge PDP successfully. But if we come together with those that have representation at the National Assembly and the Houses of Assembly and go back to sensitise our constituencies, even if the PDP want to rig they would find it impossible to rig.

“I discovered that by being so divisive, we made ourselves very vulnerable. So, the best way to survive and for this country to stabilise we just have to come together and I believe, along the line, we made necessary sacrifices.

“The tension in the country has already come down; people now think that they have a viable alternative. These feelings and belief is across the country, not only in the North or in the South-West. There is a good feeling about the party in all the political zones of the country.

“Our next important step is the mobilisation of constituencies to make sure that elections are conducted according to the law.

 
 
I will like the return to two-party system (like SDP and NRC); it will greatly help our democracy and enhance proper and credible opposition.