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The ruling Peoples Democratic Party said on Sunday
that ongoing moves by certain opposition parties to forge alliances in
view of the 2011 general elections could not dislodge it from power.
The party said that the parties’ actions were bound to fail because
Nigerians “have consistently showed that only competent, organized and
truly national political parties such as the PDP could win elections in
the country.”

“Our attention has been drawn to declarations by
leaders of some ragtag political parties boasting that they are trying
to form an alliance with the sole objective of rooting out the Peoples
Democratic Party in the forthcoming 2011 general elections. This, no
doubt, is an act of self delusion, a fantasy and an unrealizable pipe
dream,” the party’s spokesperson, Ahmed Rufa, said in Abuja. “It
appears that this grandstanding is apparently bolstered by recent
appeal court rulings which awarded some PDP state governorship seats to
some small opposition parties through legalistic argumentations.”

Failed alliances

The PDP said the first attempt to form a grand
alliance against it was in 1999 when the then All Peoples Party and
Alliance for Democracy entered into a marriage of convenience, but that
it failed. The party also noted the multiple setbacks suffered by the
Mega Party to fight it, but that those alliances never saw the light of
the day.

“This highly misplaced excitement and hysteria
expressed by this cabal of small parties and unholy alliances is
neither new nor surprising to us,” Mr. Rufa said. “We wish to remind
Nigerians that the earliest attempt to abandon individual identities of
parties and go into a marriage of convenience in 1999 called APP/AD
alliance collapsed like a pack at inception.”

Nigerians will equally recall the multiple setbacks suffered by the operating under the aegis of a so-called Mega Party.

“These phantom mergers, alliances and similar
conspiracies under whatever names have remained still-born and never
saw the light of the day due to the insincerity of their proponents.
Nigerians have come to realize that their only motivation is the naked
pursuit of power without a clear direction, a defined agenda or noble
cause.”

Mr. Rufa said the ruling party was not opposed to
multiparty democracy and that it welcomes those who offer principled
opposition or alternative views to drive Nigeria forward.

“The PDP is currently preparing for democratic
primaries where candidates will be freely chosen by members nationwide.
This is in sharp contrast to all the other parties whose candidates
emerge at the whims and caprices of demigods and cult like godfathers,”
Mr. Rufa said.

“The baseless euphoria and unfounded pipe dream to supplant the PDP
in the Nigerian political terrain by these disorganized groups is at
best as a result of hallucinations or merely a banal propaganda
ostensibly orchestrated to divert the attention of Nigerians away from
their failures.”