Posted by By FRANCIS AWOWOLE-BROWNE, Abuja on
All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) has finally agreed to go into merger with not less than nine other parties, including the Alliance for Democracy....
All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) has finally agreed to go into merger with not less than nine other parties, including the Alliance for Democracy (AD), in a bid to form a formidable mega party that can withstand the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the budding Advance Congress of Democrats (ACD) in the coming 2007 elections.
The party however, resolved not to change its name, logo, flag, and slogan.
The decision to go into what has been described as "party consolidation" was taken in Abuja on Tuesday by the National Caretaker Committee of the ANPP, at a meeting with its presidential aspirants.
The National Secretary of the party, Etubom Asuquo Nya, who read the communiqué of the meeting told newsmen that the decision to retain the identity of the party was to ensure that the electorate were not confused over any sudden change of its identity few months to the elections.
The scribe explained that much as the ANPP would hold sacrosanct to the resolutions, it might change the already set dates of its convention if only to accommodate members of merging parties that might be interested in any of the party offices to be contested for or primaries for any of the offices in the 2007 general elections.
The decision to work with other parties, the party said, was part of the recommendations of the Alhaji Umaru Shinkafi contact and reconciliation committee, which was mandated to discuss with other parties of like minds and ideas and fashion out merger, fusion or alliance so as to ensure that ANPP was in good stead to contest the coming elections.
In the communiqué, which was signed by the committee chairman, Governor Ali Modu Sherrif of Borno State, the party leadership expresses belief that the incessant change of name and logo of the party, in the wake of mergers, had had effect on its chances, with opposing parties capitalizing on it to confuse the electorate.
It assured members of the continued existence of the party and its symbols, the imminent merger and fusion with other parties in the country, not withstanding.