PDP gives R-APC two weeks to decide if they are defecting or not ahead of next year's elections

NIGERIA'S main opposition the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has given disaffected members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) a two week deadline to decide on whether they want to join them or not ahead of next year's general elections.

With Nigeria due to go to the polls in February 2019, several members of the APC who are unhappy at what they see as their marginalisation within the party, have formed a  group known as the Reformed -All Progressives Congress (R-APC). Over recent weeks, talks have been going on between the PDP and the R-APC about fielding a consensus candidate against President Muhammadu Buhari next year.

Both sides have been locked in intense talks and negotiations about getting the R-APC to switch camps and it appears the PDP is now growing impatient with the foot dragging. President Muhammadu Buhari and the new APC chairman Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, have also launched peace talks of their own to try and persuade such APC members to reconsider their plan to dump the party, making the situation complex.

With no defection of note happening as expected, the PDP,  has given senate president Bukola Saraki, House of Representatives speaker Yakubu Dogara and others a two-week deadline to make up their minds and rejoin or not. Other senior APC members in the R-APC are said to include Governor Aminu Tambuwal (Sokoto). Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed (Kwara), Governor Samuel Ortom (Benue) and former Kano State governor Rabiu Kwankwaso.

Apparently, Senator Saraki who met with President Buhari at the Presidential Villa on Thursday, has summoned an emergency meeting of his associates, loyalists and strategists to take a final decision on whether or not to defect. This meeting may hold anytime this week and it is believed that Senator Saraki has been in Lagos and Ilorin on whistle stops over the last few days for last minute consultations with his allies.

 However, the two week deadline was conveyed to Senator Saraki by Governor Nyesom Wike of Bayelsa State on Wednesday during a closed door session that took place after the funeral mother of a former PDP chairman Alhaji Kawu Baraje in Ilorin. Alhaji  Baraje, who was also chairman of the New PDP (nPDP), is one of the key promoters of R-APC.

One source familiar with the development said: “There is no doubt that the PDP delegation came to mount pressure on Saraki to hasten action on the proposal to accommodate likely defectors from APC to PDP. Wike, who led the team, asked Saraki to wrap up decision on the defection within the next one week or two weeks in order to enable PDP adjust its structures ahead of primaries for various elective posts in 2019.

“Do not forget that the defection might alter the party structure at the state level and the power sharing formula. The PDP has clearly stated that it will give equal rights and a sense of belonging to all defectors."

He added that primaries by all parties are expected to begin on August 18 and any serious defector, technically, has less than three weeks to do so in order to be able to integrate with the structure of his or her new party. However, the PDP's national publicity secretary Kola Ologbondiyan said that there is no timeframe for defection.

He added: “There is no timeframe for defection and our constitution says those who are coming to our party can contest election within one month to the conduct of any elective post and even that one month can still be waived. I am not aware of the two-week deadline given to those who are defecting and it could not have been true."