Masari Heads Buhari’s Team
Alh. Aminu Bello Masari
- We are Not Worried by the Negotiations -Ribadu.
Former speaker of the House of Representative, Alhaji Aminu Bello Masari and former Governor of Ekiti state, Otunba Niyi Adebayo, have been saddled with the tricky task of forging an alliance between the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).
The two parties have been trying to forge an alliance that would help them oust the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in next year’s general elections and have charged the two men, Masari for the CPC and Adebayo for the ACN, to lead their respective party delegation in the alliance talks, Sunday Trust gathered.
The proposed alliance has been in the offing for a while and speculations are rife that the parties plan to present a common candidate for the presidential elections. General Muhammadu Buhari of the CPC is widely seen as the candidate while Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, chieftain of the ACN and former governor of Lagos State, is tipped to be his running mate.
Masari and Adebayo have now been saddled with the difficult task of working out the modalities of this alliance, including how both parties will present candidates at various levels in local governments, states and national levels and how they propose to work together after the elections.
Already, the Save Nigeria Group (SNG), which championed the transfer of power to President Goodluck Jonathan when the late President Umaru Yar’adua was ill, and Orji Uzor Kalu’s Progressive Peoples Party (PPA) have reportedly joined in the talks.
Pastor Tunde Bakare, chieftain of the SNG has been championing Buhari for president and held talks with Nigerians in the United States and United Kingdom to promote Buhari’s presidential aspiration, a national daily reported recently.
Both Masari and Adebayo have at one time or the other been dealt a political blow by the PDP. Masari, until recently, was a member of the PDP and had also championed calls for Goodluck Jonathan to be sworn in as president before Yar’adua’s death in May. When Jonathan eventually took office, he shunned Masari in his political appointments. Many believe this prompted the former speaker to leave the party for the CPC.
Adebayo, on his part was elected governor of Ekiti State in 1999 under the platform of the Alliance for Democracy, but was swept out of office in 2003 by the Olusegun Obasanjo-inspired PDP blitz that wrestled power from the AD in the South-West region.
The ACN has emerged as the strongest opposition party in the country having won several states from the ruling PDP through court rulings. It has strong following in the south-west. Buhari’s CPC on the other hand has been enjoying huge followings in the North. Read more on pages 4, 5
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