NIM, ANN coalition set to unseat APC in 2019

The Nigeria Intervention Movement (NIM) led by former President of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), Mr. Olisa Agbakoba (SAN) and Dr Abduljalil Tafawa Balewa, says its coalition with Alliance for New Nigeria (ANN), is sure to dethrone the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) from government come 2019.

The coalition therefore urged Nigerians to obtain their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs), which they described as the most potent weapon to send the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration packing next year.Speaking while adopting ANN platform in Lagos on Wednesday, after months of consultations and negotiations, Agbakoba and Balewa in a statement they co-signed, said ANN shares common vision with the movement.

The two leaders added that the raison d’être for the adoption of ANN as democratic alternative to the ongoing political harakiri in the country, is for pulling Nigeria back from the fringe of socio-political and economic hopelessness, where it has been plunged by successive self-centered leaders and governments, including the current one.The statement reads: “As we formally adopt ANN today, the National Executive Council (NEC) of NIM shall gradually wind up as it fuses into the leadership of ANN democratically, while the National Secretariat of NIM shall continue to lead the ideological watchdog duty of the movement until after the 2019 elections. On this score, all like minded Nigerians who have the interest of Nigeria at heart are welcome on board as we march towards electing a new substantive leadership for the party, ANN across board come July 2018.”

They also urged Nigerians to reject and abandon the present ruling elite for betraying them and abandoning their primary responsibility to the people.They added: “The guarding of the existing decadent status quo and illicit political investment of our oppressors must stop. So, armed with our Permanent Voters Cards and God with us, we surely shall give birth to a new Nigeria; where peace and justice shall reign.

“It is trite, and even bordering on the obvious, to state that majority of Nigerians have been overwhelmed by the extant quality of politics going on in our dear country as manifested by reckless pursuits of self serving and exploitative politics of the entrenched political class in our clime, which has continued to ensure that little or no governance, properly so called, is going on in our beloved country, Nigeria.

“What we continue to have instead is that recycled and spent forces who form the entrenched power in Nigeria continue to massage their over-bloated ego and greed for our common resources. But for us in NIM, the whole essence of political leadership and government is the welfare and wellbeing of the citizenry. “However, what has become notoriously self evident in our circumstance instead, is the increasing impoverishment and pauperisation of the generality of our citizenry compounded by general insecurity, deepening ethno-religious animosity which have continuously tended to push our fragile unity to the precipice, endangering our more resourceful and beneficial commonality.”

Meanwhile, the son of the late Biafra warlord, Emeka Ojukwu, has expressed the hope that the coalition of NIM and ANN would unseat President Buhari in the next presidential election.He however warned the electorate to go beyond mere voting, by protecting their votes to ensure that the will of Nigerians is reflected in the outcome of the coming election.He said: “When you vote, the next problem is the umpire. You will make sure that the umpire is straight, then that is all. We will get it done. But if we only emphasis on voting and leave a lacuna, we might not make it.”

Reacting to the development, ANN National Chairman, Dr. Jay Osi Samuel said he is elated that Nigerians share his party’s purpose.But, the former Minority Leader in the Senate and member of APC, Dr. Olorunimbe Mamora, said it would be unwise to underrate the new coalition, stressing that the ruling party should ensure it gets its priority right to retain power beyond 2019.