By Ayorinde Oluokun
Former Lagos Governor, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, was a key figure in the political seismic shift that ended Peoples Democratic Party, PDP dream of ruling Nigeria for 60 years
All’s well that ends well. This ancient proverb which even became popular as the title of a comedy written by William Shakespeare, the famous British playwright seems to sum up the feeling of members of National Working Committee, NWC of All Progressives Congress who met in Abuja on Wednesday last week.
This magazine learnt that though Chief John Odigie Oyegun led members of the NWC have much to complain about on how the 2015 general elections were conducted in some parts of the country, they were however not oblivious that their political platform had at the end of the process virtually taken the Nigerian political scene by the scruff of the neck.
The meeting was called to review the performance of the party in the 28 March presidential and National assembly elections, as well as the 11 April gubernatorial and state houses of assembly elections. But even more crucial on the agenda of the APC NWC was initiating a process of putting together a team that will ensure an orderly transition of power to the country’s President-elect, General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) from the incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan.
Indeed, there was a lot to cheer by the NWC.
Just as the former Head of State will be taking the reins of power from PDP in Abuja on 29 May, 19 governors elected on the platform of APC will also be assuming office in 19 states of the federation compared to seven of their counterparts in PDP. The APC booty is even expected to swell before 29 May, when the governorship elections are concluded in Imo and possibly Taraba State, where the party, for the first time in Nigeria, fielded a woman, Senator Aisha Jummai Alhassan as its candidate.
Although governorship elections didn’t hold in Kogi, Osun, Ekiti, Edo, Anambra, Ondo, Bayelsa, APC had also won majority seats in both chambers of National Assembly to complete the routing of PDP, from its 16 years unbroken domination of Nigeria’s political space.
Many PDP chieftains could still not believe what had it them. For some, the political upset staged by the APC was still like a scene from a bad dream. Like the APC, the PDP will also do stocktaking this week.
It was learnt that the meeting will have in attendance all PDP governors, governors-elect, all the Senators, Senators- Elect, that of the House of Representatives and all the candidates who participated in the March 28 and April 11 general elections. The PDP had ahead of the meeting last week, directed all the States and Zonal Chairmen of the Party to furnish its NWC with the comprehensive reports on the last general elections in their respective States and Zones for the party to take general review of events and to take a common stand on the general conduct of the polls. This magazine also gathered that the meeting would also deliberate on how to stop the party from going out of the Nigerian political radar, following the massive reversal of fortunes it suffered in the election.
