Tinubu: How We Plotted PDP’s Downfall

• As national leaders, diplomats eulogise ‎Buhari

Tobi Soniyi in Abuja

National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu on Monday in Abuja explained how the party brought a sudden end to the reign of the Peoples Democratic Party.

Reviewing the book, ‘Muhammadu Buhari The Challenges of Leadership In Nigeria’ written by Professor John Paden, Tinubu provided rare insights into the challenges faced by political parties that came together to form an alliance that produced the APC which eventually signalled the end of the reign of PDP.

According to him, ‎to defeat PDP which had boasted it would rule Nigeria for sixty years, a political alliance had to be formed.

He said: ‎ “In forming the ‘new’ party, we had three challenges. The first was learning the right lessons from the aborted attempt at political cooperation in 2011. Fortunately, both the ACN and CPC regretted our inability to conclude a pact in 2011.

“We agreed that there would be no recrimination over what did not happen before. We agreed there would be an intensified effort to forge the united effort that eluded us in 2011.

“In 2011, both parties wanted cooperation, but became stuck whether that should take the form of an alliance or outright merger. This difference gave rise to another one, regarding how the Vice Presidential candidate, who would run with the Presidential Candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, would be selected.

“Despite numerous good-faiths demonstrated in attempts to resolve these issues, time ran out on finding a solution. In retrospect, we all were perhaps a bit too inflexible and did not realize the extent to which cooperation and flexibility were needed to establish the reform we all wanted.

“The result: each party went its own way in 2011. However, the talks of 2011 would foreshadow the discussions, beginning in 2013, which led to the successful merger forming the APC.