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Former Lagos State governor and Action Congress Party leader,
Bola Tinubu, opens up about the failed pre-election alliance talks with the CPC.
Exerpt:

Why, in your own opinion,
did alliance talks with the Congress for Progressive Change collapse?

The story is not different from what the national chairman has
said. It is very unfortunate that the two serious national parties could not solve
the problem earlier than now. We have been at it for quite some time now. You
all are aware of the National Democratic Movement, which Atiku was a member
before he moved back to the PDP. The movement was left with Bafarawa, Buhari,
and us. From that moment on, it would have been a good opportunity to form an
alliance. It is not about individuals, it is about the need to form a strong
structure. At that time, there was no CPC. What we had was TBO (The Buhari
Organisation).

Suddenly, CPC was registered. To me, at that state, instead of a
merger to form a unified platform, they started talking about alliance.
Alliance in a presidential system has never worked. You need to form a common
platform, with a common manifesto, to be able to work together and be able to
educate the people on the difference between the common platform and the
constituting parties. When the merger plan did not work, they dragged us back.

Though, I won’t lay blame but Buhari, as a leader who is highly
experienced, and has been a statesman and contested elections twice and has
complained of rigging and irregularities in court for a long time challenging
the process, he should have seen that it is not wise to bring CPC in at the
time we were rooting for a merger. But we still respected him and wanted to
continue with the merger plan, but he said he wanted an alliance.

So the merger was
suspended?

However, if you want alliance, instead of a merger, you must be
ready to negotiate and give and take and make sacrifices. But it is unfortunate
that we are so self-centred and selfish to the extent that it beclouds our
patriotic sense. They do not want to give, so they can take. We suspended the
alliance talk till after the National Assembly election, the result of which
showed that ACN has better strength and better spread than CPC. So we should be
the leader in the alliance. But they want to keep the presidential candidate as
well as the running mate, in an alliance where we should be the leading pack.

Now the alliance is not strong enough to produce the senate
president, neither can it produce the House of Representatives speaker, so what
are we going to get in return? I am ready to sacrifice my two legs to be
amputated but you are not even ready to sacrifice your index finger. They were
offering us cabinet positions which you can change your mind tomorrow and sack
at will. But we were still ready to go along with the plan, in the interest of
the nation only for us to discover that while we were negotiating the alliance,
they are also speaking with the Save Nigeria Group, to which they have conceded
the vice presidential slot. We accepted him but asked him to surrender the vice
presidential slot. If we don’t have that, our own platform, which we have
laboured so hard to build, will be in danger.

So we proposed a merger which will be implemented after the
election. We could not afford to jettison our symbol because it is the symbol
of economy, especially for the poor. But we were ready for a joint logo that
will show the broom on one side and Buhari’s pen on another side as a new logo
for the future. The negotiation went to that extent. Yet, they refused to
commit to that plan. At that point, it became clear that they are only after
using us to win election, without having any regard for our platform. We
decided at that point to cancel all suggestions and look at thing holistically.

Would you say the
formation of CPC was a fifth columnist act to stop the merger?

Let us finish the bleeding before the careful analysis and
post-mortem of the failure of the alliance will be done. But a leader must be
able to identify great opportunity and sit on it, hold on tight. No one can
mislead me easily because I examine facts, figure, and factors before taking
decision. So irrespective of how many columnists, why will a leader see that
opportunity and not seize it? I think is a question of the quality of
leadership ability.

The allegation about you
meeting with President Jonathan…

It was not true. He sought for my audience in Lagos not in
Abuja. I don’t need a presidential jet. I have been in presidential jet three
times since the return of democracy, twice with Abubakar Atiku en route Umrah
and my late friend, Yar’Adua was with us on one of the two occasions. The third
time was with President Yar’Adua.

We met at Kaduna and we flew together to Abuja. If they are sure
I flew in presidential jet to see Jonathan, let them produce the manifest of
that flight. It is amazing that blackmail thrives more than the truth in this
country. There are so many misleading stories that could easily be verified but
surprisingly end up being believed.

What is your view on
voter turnout?

This election has its own form, and next week’s governorship
will have its own form too. That is when this low turnout will turn to massive
turnout. All politics is local. We are all going to massively vote for Fashola.