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Saturday, January 22, 2011

Odumakin appointed Buhari's spokesman

There are strong indications that the much anticipated alliance between the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) may soon be consummated as the presidential candidates of both parties General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) and Nuhu Ribadu met on Wednesday in Kaduna.

Reliable sources disclosed to LEADERSHIP that the presidential candidates held a secret meeting at the Kaduna residence of the former head of state.

No details of the outcome of the meeting were provided but sources close to both politicians said that Ribadu met Buhari after paying a condolence visit to the family of late General Mamman Remawa who passed away on Sunday.

Northern Political Leaders have intensified efforts to forge a common ground to ensure that one of their own emerges the next president of the country.A source revealed that the northern leaders have directed all the presidential candidates from the region to settle for a consensus candidate from the region to brighten its chances at the coming polls

Many prominent political leaders in the north are working underground to ensure success of the project, but pretend to be satisfied with the candidature of President Goodluck Jonathan. All Arewa political heavy weights, including former Heads of State, politicians, and scholars, religious and traditional rulers have weighted the present political situation confronting the north vis-Ã -vis the country at large, and agree that the viable option left for the region is to bury their differences and concentrate on how to salvage the north from political extinction.

The reality facing the leaders is that it is better for the region to contest power with one voice than singing a discordant tune, the source further stated.Nonetheless, the leaders, according to the source, are skeptical, but yet express the hope that PDP would lose in the north.

Whether the strategy will work is another thing, but I can tell you that options are available and in many ways the northern region can put the PDP at bay. What is happening now is a reflection that PDP is losing the north, you can see resistance and it is coming from the masses that constitute 92 per cent of those that will vote in the elections.

I am telling you even if the north fail to produce a single candidate, PDP will not get the north and if you think northern aspirants that lost the primaries are working for PDP you are making a blind political calculation. Is it not one man, one vote? You will see.

Meanwhile, the presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, Buhari (rtd) has appointed Mr. Yinka Odumakin as his spokesman. A 1989 graduate of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Odumakin began his journalism career at the Punch newspapers before he moved to the Guardian newspapers.

A statement by the Buhari Campaign Organisation yesterday read, He has for years been a critical voice in the pro-democracy movement in Nigeria and, a well-known defender of justice, fairness and equity in the polity.

His critical interventions have been brought to bear on national discourse through his roles as the National Publicity Secretary of the Pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, and later the Save Nigeria Group, SNG.

His passion for a new Nigeria built on the foundation of justice, equity and good governance is expected to find expression in the campaign of Buhari who is at the head of the movement for change in Nigeria in 2011 through the ballot box, the statement said.

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