By Ochereome Nnanna

The PDP is an accomplished election-winning machine, and that is why most of the time, those who run away from it after each crisis find their ways back, sometimes braving great opposition, as Orji Kalu and Atiku Abubakar did. Each time its critics and opponents predict doom for the PDP it comes back stronger due, mainly, to its enormous incumbency and ombudsman advantages.

The APC has an uphill task before it can gain the confidence of its members and admirers as a party that will survive its teething problems as the PDP was able to do. As I noted in an earlier write-up, the APC is still a party of strange bedfellows. Perhaps, the only thing that currently unites its merging components is the common desire to dethrone the PDP. Beyond that, there is little common ground.

Historically, the merging parties do not belong to a common root. The Northern wing of the APC is basically the old All People’s Party (APP) made up of the General Sani Abacha loyalists and deserters from the PDP, such as Alhaji Aminu Asari. The APP became the All Nigerian People’s Party (ANPP) and later split when General Buhari left and formed the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) when some ANPP leaders decided to work with the PDP administration in a quasi-“government of national unity” after the 2007 polls.

These Arewa components of the APC come with the typical northern mindset of pushing for the continuation of the current centralised federalism with the North in charge of the presidency and the South providing the Vice President. General Buhari also strikes the posture of a man who will fight corruption; an attribute that may not endear him to many of his fellow leaders when the struggle for the presidential slot heats up.

CONTD HERE:
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/08/who-leads-the-apc/