Progressives Congress (APC) has mapped out a formidable strategy to
dislodge the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from power come 2015.
Despite that the opposition party has, for sometime, blocked avenues
of information leakage as a result of the embarrassing experience it had
over the issue of its registration, some dissidents in the party who
are embittered by possible flocking of PDP members into the APC
unwittingly revealed the grand plan.
According to the plan, the opposition has created a geopolitical map
of Nigeria with marking of areas of its strength and weaknesses. The
first approach, which is already in operation, is the targeting of the
major electoral and population centres of the federation with a view to
securing plurality advantage over the ruling party’s candidate in 2015.
It was learnt that the map specifically targets Kano and Lagos
states, as the two most populous in the country with a likely combined
strength of between 12 and 14 million votes. As the Action Congress of
Nigeria (ACN) already controls Lagos, the opposition is reported to be
investing heavily in snatching Kano from the ruling party, a reason said
to be behind the ongoing push to get the Kano State governor to defect
to the APC
Insight into the plan also revealed that the pressure on Governor
Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso to defect has grown so much that the governor is
alleged to be in communication with General Muhammadu Buahri. A
defection by Kwankwaso, it was gathered, would leave the opposition with
the control of three dominant political caucuses in Kano State, namely
the Buhari group, the Ibrahim Shekarau group and the Kwankwasiya group
of Governor Kwankwaso.
The opposition, with such control, could then claim close to 80 per
cent of the votes in the state. While the governor is yet to embrace the
signals, reports indicated that collaboration may have gone far ahead
as recent interactions among the trio of the state governor, Buhari and
Senator Bola Tinubu indicated.
The map, aside focusing on the population centres, also reportedly
identifies the core North, spreading from upper North-East to North-West
and the South-West, including parts of Edo and Delta axis as zones of
influence. The listed states include Sokoto, Kebbi, Zamfara, Jigawa,
Borno, Yobe, Niger, Kano, Katsina, Kaduna, Bauchi and Gombe, including
parts of Adamawa. The document indicates that the opposition is banking
on the cult, like support of General Buhari and planned defection by
some PDP chieftains to its fold.
For the South, the political map is said to include the six states of
the South-West, namely Osun, Oyo, Ogun, Lagos, Ekiti and Ondo, in
addition to Edo and a substantial part of Delta State where the document
believes opposition support is growing on a daily basis. The
expectation is that the alleged marginalisation of the Yoruba in the
Goodluck Jonathan-led government will dissuade any Yoruba voter from
supporting him come 2015, just as the strategists also hold that the
core North will politically work against the president as a group.
The optimism of the opposition on the South-West, Sunday Tribune
learnt, has been strengthened by the rift between the president and
former President Olusegun Obasanjo. The opposition is said to believe
that the anger within Obasanjo group in the South-West will work to its
(opposition’s) advantage.
source: sunday tribune
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