There are strong reports that a new party is set to emerge from the ruling and opposition parties due to growing bitterness among influential members.
Less than one year into the life of the current administration, politicians of the major partisan divides have commenced secret moves to realign forces ahead of the 2019 general elections, New Telegraph has gathered.
The talks, said to be causing ripples within the Presidency and a cross section of the All Progressives Congress (APC), cut across a sizeable portion of the ruling party and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The move, according to a source close to the leadership of the ruling party, is ostensibly triggered by the emergence of a new power cartel in the Presidential Villa that appears to have sidelined some founding fathers of the APC.
“Such leaders are aggrieved, but have resorted to remain calm and keep their cool even in the face of glaring subjugation to the background by those young Turks who have formed a new cartel in the villa to corner the spoils of war,” the source told a correspondent in confidence.
A reporter could not get reaction on the development from the Presidency as a text message sent to the Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, was not replied as at the time of going to press.
But the deputy national chairman (South) of the APC, Engr. Segun Oni, has described such politicians as desperate spoilers who have nothing to lose any longer. “We are aware of all the antics of these so-called politicians. I am sure they are more in the PDP than they are in the APC.
Even if there are some in our party, they must be acting in ignorance and perhaps misinformed by their contact travellers in the PDP. “In this country, people have failed to realise that losing election itself is an opportunity for self-reassessment and reinvention. It is an opportunity to go back to the drawing board and see what could be done to salvage your party.
“You don’t just wake up one day and say because you lost, everything should be lost. It is absolutely impossible the way they view it. Like in America, once the Republicans or the Democrats lose, they concentrate more on what led to their defeat and not to immediately explore possible means of bringing down a government.
“As far as we are concerned, such elements are desperate and you the media should expose them, we know what they are up to, but we are more prepared to bring the dividends of change to the ordinary Nigerian who voted for our party than spend time trying to stop them,” Oni told a correspondent.