ACN, CPC merger c’ttee holds inaugural meeting tomorrow

By Johnbosco Agbakwuru

ABUJA—THE merger committees of  Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, and the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, will hold their joint inaugural meeting tomorrow in Abuja.

Secretary of the merger talk committee for the CPC, Mr. Okoi Obono-Obla, who disclosed this to Vanguard yesterday, said the joint committees of the two parties will, among other things, draft a new constitution, mission statement, vision and manifesto for the mega party as well as the new name.

Obono-Obla, who observed that there had been speculations, especially from the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, that the ambitions of the leader of CPC, General Muhammadu Buhari, and ACN’s Bola Ahmed Tinubu, would not allow the merger to work out, boasted that nothing will stop the merger from working out  to rescue the country from the pit allegedly dug by the PDP.

He said contrary to the speculations, the first inaugural meeting of the  merger committees of both parties will take place tomorrow  in Abuja.

He said: “I can assure you that the two leaders, General Muhammadu Buhari and Asiwaju Ahmed Tinunbu, and all the leaders of the two parties have agreed that the parties should merge to rescue Nigeria from the pit and no Jupiter will change it.

“So, the merger committees are just meeting to fulfill all righteousness. We have agreed in principle that the parties will merge so the joint committee will work out the constitution, the manifesto and the name of the party because we will not want to carry the names of the two parties over, we are going to have a new name completely.”

On the suspected influence of Asiwaju Tinunbu and General Buhari on the new expected mega party as a result of the fusion of the two, he said: “Bola Tinubu is a democrat to the core, you know he was in NADECO, he was a senator, he was two times a governor, so he cannot impose his will on anybody.

“Likewise General Buhari, he has contested presidential elections, he went to the Supreme Court three times, he has been the most vocal voice for change in Nigeria, so they are not going to impose their wish on anybody.”