Adebayo Folorunsho-Francis examines the intrigues leading to the collapse of the proposed alliance between the Labour Party and the New Nigeria Peoples Party
Days after the prolonged talks on an alliance between the Labour Party and the New Nigerian Peoples Party collapsed, officials from both sides have blamed each other for the fiasco. The proposed union had excited many Nigerians and political observers with many positing that it would create an opening to the North-West and further place the presidential candidate of the LP, Peter Obi, in a prime position to challenge his counterparts in the ruling All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu; and the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar, ahead of the 2023 general elections.
Obi had defected from the PDP when it was obvious that Atiku was not willing to give up his perennial dream of becoming the president. Following his shocking move to the LP, the former Anambra State governor has continued gaining popularity and dominating the narratives especially on social media space. His sudden rise has shocked even his critics and commanded respect from opposing candidates who once christened him ‘Social Media President.’
When the Chairman of LP, Julius Abure, mooted that the idea of an alliance with the NNPP, the move had fuelled the belief of Obi’s supporters that he could bridge the gap separating his ‘structureless’ platform from the ruling APC and the PDP. A former presidential spokesperson and LP’s ex-placeholder, Dr Doyin Okupe, was the head of the delegation for Obi while a former chieftain of the defunct All Nigeria People’s Party, Buba Galadima, led the negotiating team from the NNPP.
Things fall apart
However, following weeks of deliberations and reviews, the dream of a potential merger between LP and NNPP hit the rocks, with both parties accusing each other of sabotaging the deal. The NNPP’s National Publicity Secretary, Dr. Agbo Major, told our correspondent that the inability of both political parties to come together stemmed from a disagreement over who should step down for the other as presidential candidate.
He said, “The issue between us has been who will become the president and vice president (candidates), but the thing took an ethnic and religious colouration. According to Obi, the Igbos are insisting that this is their chance to produce the president and they can’t afford to waste this opportunity. (Rabiu) Kwankwaso also insisted that he had a structure and was more experienced as a politician. That was why we had a stalemate. As it stands, the talks on the proposed alliance have broken down. We are no longer talking.”
When asked if the NNPP was looking beyond the collapsed alliance for talks with other parties, Agbo said they were still open to talks with other potential political parties. He stressed, “Of course, we are always open to alliance talks with anybody or party that is willing to work with us based on very objective terms. We are prepared. No party wants to go all alone. But in the event where that is none, we will do it alone.”
Earlier, the NNPP standard bearer (Kwankwaso) had carpeted his counterpart in the LP for refusing to step down for him despite knowing that his wealth of experience and knowledge of the political terrain could coast them to victory. Kwankwaso, a former governor of Kano State, had urged Obi, also a former governor of Anambra, to accept his offer of vice presidential slot to seal their alignment ahead of next year’s poll. According to him, the union of both political parties will provide an opportunity for the South-East to produce the first president in the nearest future.
He said, “The South-East is good in terms of business, very hard-working and industrious, but one area they must learn is politics. They are at the bottom line. If you look at the situation, they have lost out with the APC and the PDP; no president, no vice president. The only opportunity the South-East has to produce the president or vice president is with the NNPP. Coincidentally, the party was registered by an Igbo man from Anambra State. This is the only golden opportunity that they have.”
Kwankwaso’s alleged ego
Feeling slighted by Kwankwaso’s on toward th collapsed alliance, the National Chairman of the LP, Julius Abure, knocked the former governor of Kano State for allowing the ego of his “Kwankwasiyya Movement” to becloud his sense of reasoning. An emotional Abure told our correspondent that the problem was not the fault of Obi, as the NNPP camp would want Nigerians to believe, but the ego of Kwankwaso.
He said, “Kwankwaso is just not ready to become a vice president to Peter Obi. I have said it before and I will reiterate it. The man of the moment is Obi who has the largest followers. Even the zoning formula favours Obi more than Kwankwaso. He (Kwankwaso) is from the North-West and the current President (Muhammadu Buhari) is from the same region. The late (Umaru)Yar’Adua was also from the North-West. In a country that has such diversity that often leads to ethnic and religious crises, we need to manage our differences effectively. It is therefore not fair and reasonable for somebody from the North-West to be thinking of becoming a presidential candidate again. That is where we are.
“The enormous work put in by the LP, Obi and his movement is beyond the ego of one person. The truth is that we have moved beyond Kwankwaso for now and are looking at other political parties we can work with. So far, we have identified well meaning people with more credentials and better performances in their various teams.”
When reminded that the Director of Publicity and Advocacy of Northern Elders Forum, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, had been touted as Obi’s running mate on social media, Abure stated that whatever people were dangling on any platform was fake. He said, “Whatever you read anywhere is speculation. We will announce our vice-presidential candidate between now and July 15”.
Okupe on alliance
Okupe also confirmed on ‘Politics Today’, a popular programme on Channels Television that discussion on an alliance with the NNPP had died long before now. “That discussion, or those discussions about a merger, alliance and all that were led by me from our side; it is dead and buried. It is not Mr Peter Obi; the LP and its presidential candidate have long since withdrawn from that conversation and it was the NNPP that continued to try to benefit from the traction of the popularity of Obi. Out of maturity, I decided that we will not take them on media-wise. So, we kept quiet, but they kept going on.
“The talk for an alliance had been dead for over four weeks. I am the leader of the team that went to discuss with Kwankwaso’s team, and it was dead. The moment I asked them one single question: would they consider it appropriate and okay for a president of northern extraction and Muslim to finish eight years and another Muslim northerner from the next state to take over? They said there was nothing wrong with that. As far as I’m concerned, the discussion was over and it had remained so since then.”
Galadima, however, assessed the drama from another perspective. The chieftain of the NNPP, who appeared on Arise TV on Monday, disclosed that those saying it would amount to an “insult” if Obi agreed to become Kwankwaso’s deputy “are not politicians.”
He said, “I chaired the negotiation for 13 good hours and we had an understanding onalmost all the issues raised except one – which is who should be the presidential candidate, and who should deputise for him. They (LP) just started a movement two months ago. The ‘Kwankwasiyya’ Movement has been on the ground for 32 years, and the main objective of the movement, aside from development, is to make sure that Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso becomes the president of Nigeria, because he has a lot to offer, and no Nigerian living today has ever performed while in public office like Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso has done,” he said.
Galadima added, “If Kwankwaso deputises Peter Obi, it is not the ticket of Peter Obi that will gain currency. It is Atiku that will benefit, because as far as we are concerned, if Kwankwaso steps down to be vice president, the people from this part of the country are likely to vote one of their own who is running as president. If Peter Obi is vice president to Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, he doesn’t lose his followership because that could’ve been the best position that the people of the South-East extraction could’ve got in this 2023 election. They are out in the PDP, they are out in the APC, but having a vice president with a promise and viability of becoming president after Kwankwaso will now make them self-satisfied.”
Meanwhile, announcing Dr Datti Baba-Ahmed as his running mate, Obi said he (Baba-Ahmed) was eminently qualified to bring his private sector and academic achievements to bear in the drive to rescue Nigeria from the primitive politics of ethnicity. The ex-governor added that the LP would anchor its manifesto in coming days on the 17 goals of Sustainable Development Goals. He said in the coming weeks, the LP would unleash its ingenuity and resourcefulness of the youths, promising that the party’s administration would unlock the new assets of vast land in the North and turn it to future oil.
Obi said that his administration would make Nigeria food basket of Africa, and that he would not be part of any form of victimisation or witch-hunt of previous administrations. “I have the honour to present to you somebody I can call a friend, a younger brother and God willing, the next Vice President of Nigeria, in the person of Senator Yusuf Baba-Ahmed,” he said, while unveiling the educationist as his running mate.
With both parties picking up the broken pieces of their wounded egos, it is left to be seen how Obi and Kwankwaso plan to beat political juggernauts like Tinubu and Atiku in the build-up to the 2023 elections.
Reacting to the matter, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, told Sunday PUNCH that he did not see the aborted alliance as a big deal. According to him, there is no difference in all the presidential candidates, including Kwankwaso, Obi, Tinubu and Atiku.
He said, “You will recall that Peter Obi was comfortable in the PDP and the All Progresives Grand Alliance. Kwankwaso was also comfortable in the PDP and the ruling APC before he became the NNPP presidential candidate. Their so-called emergence or movement is only a political rule meant to fly the kite and pull the wool over the eyes of Nigerians. I cannot see any messiah in Obi or Kwankwaso. They can’t perform any magic beyond what Atiku and Tinubu will do. These people don’t have the interest of the masses at heart. The reason the alliance collapsed and will continue to collapse is that people’s interest is not at the heart of the (proposed) merger.”
The Lagos lawyer also expressed concerns that the Nigeria Labour Congress had gone into comatose in the face of suffering and poverty being inflicted on workers by the Federal Government.
“Since the advent of the APC regime, the labour union has become totally decimated. The NLC has not prosecuted a single struggle beyond carrying placards by five persons and making noise in the media. It seems to have lost its voice as Labour movement. Is it the political wing of Labour that will rescue Nigeria when the workers’ union is in comatose? Nigerians should not expect that anything can come from the NNPP or the Labour Party even if they had merged. Obi has been part of the status quo that had been collecting security votes as governors. Has he accounted for it?
“Rabiu Kwankwaso was a former governor and senator. Was he not also collecting his allowances? Nigerians need a movement of their own and anybody who wants to rescue our nation is expected to give us a restructuring with people’s constitution. Even if a merger had succeeded between the Labour Party and the NNPP, it won’t lead us anywhere as long as they are working with the same Senate, House of Reps and constitution,” he said.
On what it takes for a successful alliance to fly, Adegboruwa stated that it must be hinged on programmes and ideology. The SAN further urged the present crop of political parties to borrow a leaf from the ones in the First Republic.
“First, there has to be programmes. Alliance is based on the ideologies and principles that political parties stand for. But if the alliance is based on the interest of the leaders, they will soon fight and leave to achieve their ambition elsewhere. The only reason Kwankwaso went to the NNPP was because the APC could not accommodate him. He has been having a rivalry with Governor Abdullahi Ganduje in Kano State. That was what forced him out of the APC. Otherwise, if that platform was able to accommodate his interest, he would have no complaint.
“The only reason Peter Obi also went to the Labour Party was because the PDP was not ready to give him the presidential ticket. He saw the handwriting on the wall. Therefore, for there to be a successful alliance, there must be programmes, objectives, manifestos and ideological roadmap that members will continue to follow. Even if the leaders leave the party, that ideology will remain,” he said.
A professor of Political Science, Sylvester Odion-Akhaine, also knocked the NNPP and the LP for raising the hopes of Nigerians when it was obvious they were after their personal interests. The Lagos State University don explained that much as he believed that an alliance was necessary in a multi-party system to grab electoral power, the one concerning Labour-NNPP was wrongly done in the first place.
He said, “When you enter into an alliance, it is strong on the basis of programmes. What is the programme of the NNPP and what is the programme of the LP? Is there any meeting point between the two programmes? Unfortunately, because it was reduced to who will be the presidential candidate, the alliance was bound to fail in the first place. They were not discussing about programmes but who will be presidential candidate and running mate.
“Secondly, the alliance was reduced to talks of Obi and Kwankwaso and not on the ideals of the LP and the NNPP. I am afraid, even the LP will run into crisis at some point because it is not carrying the content of Labour.”
When asked to expatiate further, Odion-Akhaine stated that the LP ought to be the party for the working class. “What is the working class ideology? It is communism, socialism. Bearing Labour Party is just a name label which is basically what it has been reduced to now. I think the alliance with the First Republic almost worked, even though the Republic was bound to collapse because of power struggle.
“What you have is not a political party but people with ambitions looking for a political platform where they will be allowed to handpick. If you are building alliance on the basis of programmes, it will work. In Nigeria, people are only after their own ambitions. That’s why it can’t work,” he stated.
